LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




EARTHLY SUFFERING 

AND 

HEAVENLY GLORY: 

WITH OTHER SERMONS. 



EARTHLY SUFFERING 



AND 



HEAVENLY GLORY: 



WITH OTHER SERMONS. 



BY 



HENRY A. BOARDMAN, D.D. 



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ikh 



.«-■ 




PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 



1878 

> 



OF CONG* Egg 
[WAtHlWOTOMJ 



/ 8 



. Mu Z j 



Copyright, 1878, by J. B. LirpiNCOTT & Co. 



PREFACE. 



With a single exception, these sermons were 
prepared and preached in the ordinary routine of 
the Author's Pastoral ministrations. 

The closing discourse of the series was delivered 
before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church at the opening of its Annual Sessions in 
Nashville, Tennessee, May 17, 1855. It was printed 
by order of the General Assembly, and is still 
issued from the press of the Presbyterian Board 
of Publication. It has seemed proper to include 
it in this volume, by reason of the persistent and 
increasing efforts put forth, alike in England and in 
our own country, to revive the noxious heresy of an 
Official Human Priesthood in the Christian Church. 

131 1 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, April, 1878. 

1* 5 



CONTENTS. 



SERMON I. 

Cartel) &ufmstj) arib ijciwenlt) t&ioxr). 

1 1 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time 
are not worthy to be conipared with the glory 
which shall be revealed in us, ' ' — Romans v i i i . i 8 1 1 

SERMON II. 

tltyat ttjtnk pc of Cljmt? 

" What think ye of Christ? 11 — Matthew xxii. 42 . 36 

SERMON III. 

&\)c illpstcrp of Tpvoxnocnce. 

"Zo, these are parts of His ways. 11 — Job xxvi. 14 . 62 

SERMON IV. 

Ztyc Cljurcl): Knitp in jDtocwttp; jDkicrsttt) in Kmtt). 

"For as the body is one, and hath many members, 
and all the members of that one body, being 
many, are one body: so also is Christ. 11 — 
I. Corinthians xii. 12 . . . . -83 

7 



S Contents. 

S ERMON V. 
t&cbcmpttmtj a Jfrtufcu to tijc 3Utgtlf. 

PAGE 

u ] Which things the angels desire to look into" — 

I. Peter i. 12 108 

SERMON VI. 

(Christ, tljc jPcsirc of all llatioiw. 

11 And the Desire of all nations shall come." — 

Haggai ii. 7 132 

SERMON VII. 
(Sod tbc onli; adequate Portion of tljc £oul. 
lt Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is 
none upon, earth that I desire beside Thee." — 
Psalm lxxiii. 25 ..... 156 

SERMON VIII. 

£l)c Scripture jDoctrinc of tUumroa. 
"He that reeeiveth a prophet in the name of a 
prophet, shall receive a prophet 1 s reward ; and 
he that reeeiveth a righteous man in the name 
of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous 
man 1 s reward." — Matthew x. 41 • . 180 

SERMON IX. 
£lK &tsl(htfl of tl)c tempest. 
>d when lie was entered into a ship, His disci- 
ples followed Him. And, behold, there arose 
u great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the 
ship ~ < red with the waves : but He was 



Contents. g 

asleep. And His disciples came to Him, and 
awoke Him, saving, Lord, save ns : we perish. 
And He saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, 
O ye of little faith ? Then He arose, and re- 
buked the winds and the sea ; and there was a 
great calm. But the ?nen marvelled, saying, 
What manner of man is this, that even the 
winds and the sea obey Sim!" — Matthew 
viii. 23-27 ....... 203 

SERMON X. 

t\)c ^xvoQimcc anfc <Capriciou0nc05 of tlje tUflrlfc, in frcalhtfl 
nritl) iLutc ttcligicn. 

1 c But whereunto shall I liken this generation ? It 
is like unto children sitting in the markets, and 
calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have 
piped unto you, and ye have not danced ; we 
have mourned unto you, and ye have not 
lamented. For John ca?ne neither eating nor 
drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The 
Son of man came eating and drinking, and they 
say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a wi?ie- 
bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But 
wisdom is justified of her children." — Mat- 
thew xi. 16-19 226 

SERMON XI. 

picturing in $opc. 
" That he that plougheth should plough in hope." — 

I. Corinthians ix. 10 . . . . .251 



io Contents. 

SERMOtf XII. 
£ik toltn o\ tfttatfc. 

TAGE 

k ' fs there no balm in Gilead; is there no Physician 

there/" — JEREMIAH viii. 22 ... 273 

SERMON XIII. 
£bc &a9t0ur f i Stranger to %\z /rtenna. 
" Have I been so long time with yon, and yet hast 

thou not known met" — John xiv. 9 . . 296 

SERMON XIV. 

(Cljrist (SlorifieD in %\s People. 

" 1 am glorified in them . n — John xvii. 10 . . 319 

SERMON XV. 

£l)e Annunciation. 
"And the angel eame in unto her, and said, Hail, 
thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with 
thee : blessed art thou among women. 11 — Luke 
i- 28 336 

SERMON XVI. 

l\\av\) antf (Clyabctlj. 

11 Blessed art thou among women ." — Luke i. 42 . 360 

SERMON XVII. 

Z\)c (Christian ittinistrn not a PriestljooD. 
" This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of 
a bishops h e desireth a good work." — I. Tim- 
01 iiv iii. 1 ...... . 385 



EARTHLY SUFFERING AND HEAVENLY 
GLORY. 



Romans viii. 18. 



" For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time 
are 7iot worthy to be compared with the glory which 
shall be revealed in us." 

The Christian religion comes to us from heaven, 
and its whole purpose and aim is to prepare us for 
heaven. Our own tendency is to live in and for the 
present. We are engrossed with this world. We 
pursue its honors and enjoyments as the chief good. 
We struggle fruitlessly against its calamities, or sul- 
lenly bow to them as the greatest of evils. Our phi- 
losophy knows no better, and until we are taught 
in a different school we must endure the pains and 
penalties of these sad illusions. The Gospel of 
Christ supplies the needful corrective to them. It 
comes to call away men's thoughts from the seen to 
the unseen, from the temporal to the spiritual, from 
the present to the future. To this end conspire all 

ii 



i 2 Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 

its doctrines, all its promises, all its threatenings, all 
its ordinances. Everything pertaining to it savors 
of another sphere and a nobler existence. Even a 
church-edifice, as we pass it in our daily walks, is 
suggestive of the invisible and the eternal; much 
more when the thronged worshippers meet to lay 
their sacrifices upon its altars. 

No one ever understood this truth better, nor felt 
it more deeply, nor enforced it more eloquently, than 
the writer of the Epistle before us. When he de- 
fined faith as "the substance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things not seen," he spoke experiment- 
ally. For such was his own faith. It pierced the 
veil which hides the other world from us, and saw as 
well what is there as what is here. It took in, not 
merely this brief, precarious span that we call life, 
but the soul's whole duration ; not merely the shad- 
ows of the present scene, which we misname realities, 
but the realities of the spirit-world, which we mistake 
for shadows. And it interpreted both the pleasures 
and the crosses of our earthly pilgrimage, by the 
light thrown back upon them from the resplendent 
walls and towers of the city of the Great King. Of 
this we have an instance in the text: " For I reckon 
that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy 
to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed 
in us." He appeals from the present suffering to the 
future glory, and declares that the suffering is of no 



Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 1 3 

moment when compared with the glory in which it 
is to terminate. Let us consider this sentiment: it 
may minister to others of God's dear children some- 
thing of the strength and consolation which the 
apostle derived from it. 

11 The sufferings of this present time." Who is the 
man, you may ask, that speaks in such disparaging 
terms of these sufferings? Would he talk thus of 
them if he knew what they were ? He does know 
what they are. If you imagine that you can teach 
him anything on this point, listen to his recital drawn 
from him by false teachers who impugned his apos- 
tleship : " In labors more abundant, in stripes above 
measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of 
the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. 
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, 
thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have 
been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of 
waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own 
countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the 
city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, 
in perils among false brethren ; in weariness and pain- 
fulness, in watchings often ; in hunger and thirst, in 
fastings often ; in cold and nakedness. Beside those 
things that are without, that which cometh upon me 
daily, the care of all the churches." (2 Cor. xi. 23-28.) 
Here is the answer to the question, Did the writer 
of the text know what suffering is? And it is the 

2 



14 Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 



man that endured all this variety and accumulation 
of trials who says : " The sufferings of this present 
time are not worthy to be compared with the glory 
that shall be revealed in us." Nor is it correct to 
say that to speak thus is to disparage the sorrows of 
earth. The Christian is no more insensible to trouble 
and pain than other men. Jesus of Nazareth was no 
stoic. He neither inculcated indifference to suffering 
as a virtue, nor set an example of it. So far from it, 
He was in full sympathy with suffering humanity in 
whatever form it appealed to Him. He felt His own 
sorrows as only a perfect man could feel them, and 
He felt the sorrows of others as if they were His own. 
Instead of discountenancing sensibility to want, and 
pain, and affliction, the whole tendency, both of His 
life and His doctrine, was to foster it. If there are 
regions where sorrow evokes no pity, and misery 
no relief, they lie beyond the sphere of Christianity. 
An unfeeling, stone-like Christian were an offensive 
solecism, a reproach to the Christian name, a blot 
upon the fair face of the Church. 

We may go further. God means that we shall 
feel afflictions. There is a significance in the ex- 
pression, "the sufferings of this present time." This 
present time is designed to be a time of suffering. 
The whole dispensation proceeds upon this idea. 
God might have taken His own directly to heaven, 
that they at least would have escaped suffering. 



Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glo?y. 1 5 

But He adopted a different plan. He leaves them 
here, after they are renewed, to share in those sor- 
rows under which (as the apostle goes on to say in 
the context) " the whole creation groaneth and tra- 
vaileth in pain together." And this He does, not 
from caprice, not in mere sovereignty, still less " for 
His own pleasure," but " for their profit, that they 
may be partakers of His holiness." This being the 
end He has in view, He intends that they shall feel 
the strokes of His rod. How, otherwise, should 
chastisement answer its disciplinary purpose ? 

There is no dictate, then, either of nature or of re- 
ligion, which requires us to regard the " sufferings of 
this present time" as of trivial moment in themselves 
considered. We all know that contemplated in this 
aspect, they are not trivial. Look, e.g., at the trials of 
poverty. Here are three-fourths of the race shut up 
to a life of incessant toil. From morning to night, 
work, work, work. In rain and in sunshine, in the 
summer's heat and the winter's cold, in health and 
in feebleness, with scant clothing perhaps and scantier 
fare, with a wife and children sick or well, with no 
respite but the blessed Sabbath, from the opening to 
the end of the year, and year after year continually, 
work, work, work ! Well may the apostle speak 
of the creation as " groaning and travailing in 
pain." We see it, and hear it, and feel it, all 
around us — the bitter fruit of the primeval curse 



M) Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 

— in the Struggles and trials of the panting, care- 
worn, tribes of labor. 

This, however, is but a small part of the "suffer- 
ings of this present time." Suffering is no exclusive 
heritage of the poor. It belongs to earth ; and what- 
ever is of earth, must share in it. When sin came 
into the world, it brought death with it (Rom. v. 12); 
and " death," in this affirmation of the apostle, com- 
prehends all the types of suffering and sorrow to 
which humanity is subject. To enumerate and de- 
scribe these were impossible. " Man is born unto 
trouble, as the sparks fly upward." We cannot tra- 
verse the streets without meeting it. It has its 
symbols in the very institutions which Christian 
civilization points to as its chief jewels. These hos- 
pitals, these asylums for the deaf, the blind, the aged, 
the insane, these widows' and orphans' houses, these 
multiform benevolent societies, — what are they all 
but ensigns of sorrow and suffering, noble and gen- 
erous devices of our heaven-born faith for stanching 
the bleeding wounds of humanity? 

The moment you descend from a general survey 

ty to contemplate its constituent parts, you 

] a still more vivid impression of the general 

prevalence of suffering. On every side you encounter 

f peculiar sadness, in the way of pecuniary 

reverses, sickness, bereavement, blighted affections, 

filial ingratitude, domestic alienation, and onward 



Ear i lily Suffering and Heavenly Glory, 1 7 

through a dismal catalogue of woes which contribute 
each its several rivulet or torrent to swell the vast 
flood of earthly sorrow. There must be families here 
within the sound of my voice who could tell tales 
of woe that would move a heart of adamant. Such 
families form a part of every great community. They 
are witnesses not only, but examples, of the " suffer- 
ings of this present time," — examples to prove that 
these sufferings are too many and too ponderous to 
be lightly spoken of. 

And there are sufferings which exceed even these 
in severity : those which afflict the conscience ; which 
bring darkness upon the soul, and fill the agitated 
bosom with remorse and anguish, with the sense of 
an angry God and the terror of coming judgment. 
These belong to the " sufferings of this present 
time;" and they are more intolerable than severe 
outward calamities. 

St. Paul had known too much of these trials, both 
the temporal and the spiritual, to represent them as 
being in themselves of small moment. Yet when he 
looks at them in the light of the unseen world, he 
boldly affirms, they " are not worthy to be compared 
with the glory that shall be revealed in us." It was 
this conviction which nerved him to bear his trials with 
a heroism which may challenge comparison with the 
proudest exhibitions of martial courage. He looked 
abroad over this wide scene of misery and pain and 

2* 



[8 Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 

tears, and measured the sorrows of earth, his own 
included, by the glories of heaven. And he was 

compelled to say, " there is no proportion between 
them ; the sorrow may be great, but it is nothing to 
the glory." And thus every one must feel who can 
attain an elevation sufficiently high to command the 
entire field; or even to command some transient 
glimpses of the realm beyond the flood. Here is our 
misfortune. We see the suffering; we do not see 
the glory. Nay, we do more than see the suffering: 
we feel it. It is all around us like the atmosphere. 
It is intermingled with our every allotment. It is part 
of ( ourselves. Scarcely a day passes that we have not 
to do with want and sorrow, with mental pain or out- 
ward woe, our own or others'. And ever and anon 
such examples of signal, crushing affliction appeal 
to our sympathies, that they absorb for the time our 
very being, and deprive us of all power to think 
whether there is or can be any solace for them. This 
is natural. But unbelief is at the core of it: for 

• Earth hath no sorrow 
Thai heaven cannot heal." 

n these trials would be deemed tolerable if we 

them from the point where the apostle 

>d when he penned the text. 

But what does he mean by "the glory that shall be 

/ in us" — that glory which is to eclipse and 

turn to nought all the sufferings of earth? It is not 



Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 1 9 

given us to answer this question, except in a very 
imperfect way. This glory is future; it is yet to 
be revealed. We cannot therefore describe it now. 
The venerable John, in affirming this, has neverthe- 
less given us a hint of it: " Beloved, now are we the 
sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we 
shall be ; but we know that when He shall appear, 
we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He 
is." This may aid our conceptions somewhat. And 
it may further aid us to consider that the design of 
the present economy is to undo the effects of the 
apostasy, and restore man to his primeval image. 
Could we frame an adequate conception of the first 
man, as he came from his Maker's hands, while it 
would not at all exhaust the meaning of the phrase, 
"the glory that shall be revealed in us," it would 
supply some ideas not unworthy of the subject. One 
of our eminent New England theologians refers to 
Adam in these eloquent terms : 

" His mind could trace the skill and glory of the 
Creator in the works of His hands ; and from the 
nature of the work, could understand, admire, and 
adore the Workman. His thoughts could rise to 
God and wander through eternity. The universe 
was to him a mirror, by which he saw reflected every 
moment, in every place, and in every form, the 
beauty, greatness, and excellence of Jehovah. To 
Him his affections and his praises rose, more sweet 



20 Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 

than the incense of the morning, and made no un- 
happy harmony with the loftier music of heaven. 
He was the Priest of tin's great world, and offered 
the morning and evening sacrifice of thanksgiving 
for the whole earthh' creation. Of this creation he 
was also the Lord, not the Tyrant; but the rightful, 
just, benevolent Sovereign. The subjection of the 
inferior creatures to him was voluntary, and produc- 
tive of nothing but order, peace, and happiness. With 
these endowments and privileges he was placed 
in Paradise, — no unhappy resemblance of heaven 
itself, — and surrounded by everything which was 
good for food, or pleasant to the eye, or fragrant to 
the smell. In an atmosphere impregnated with 
life; amid streams in which life flowed ; amid fruits 
in which life bloomed and ripened; encircled by 
ever-living beauty and magnificence; peaceful within, 
safe without; and conscious of immortality; he was 
destined to labor only that he might be useful and 
happy, and to contemplate the wonders of the uni- 
verse, and worship its glorious Author, as his prime 
and professional employment. He was an image 
of the invisible God, created to be like Him in 
knowledge, righteousness, holiness, His most illus- 
trious attributes ; and like Him, to exercise dominion 
r the works of his hands."* 



' : Rev. Timothy Dwight, D.D. 



Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 2 1 

Cancelling such of the relations and powers here 
ascribed to Adam as were peculiar to him in virtue 
of his federal headship of the race, we may accept 
this beautiful portraiture as bearing a near resem- 
blance to the saints in glory. Whereinsoever the 
two may be unequal, the advantage lies with the 
ransomed. In our first parent we behold a perfect 
man. The same perfection, only of a loftier type, 
will attach to every one of the redeemed. I say, of 
a loftier type; for this will be true even of their 
physical organization. Although Adam was not 
mortal, or subject to death, until he sinned, yet his 
body was adapted to the world he was to inhabit. 
We may not deny the materialism of the " new 
heavens and the new earth ;" but we are given to 
understand that it will be less gross in its forms 
than the matter which surrounds us here ; and this 
will call for a corresponding adaptation in the bodies 
of the redeemed. Nor is this mere conjecture. In 
a passage quoted a moment ago, we are taught that 
at the resurrection the saints will be like Christ : 
11 we shall be like Him!' We read elsewhere that 
they will be raised " with bodies like unto Christ's 
glorious body." Once only before His ascension did 
He put on this u glorious body." In that wonder- 
ful scene, " His face did shine as the sun, and His 
raiment was white as the light." Moses and Elias, 
it is probable, were robed in similar splendors. 



22 Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 

Brief as the description is, it seems to warrant the 
presumption that the bodies of the righteous will 
wear something of the glory which ravished the eyes 
of the three favored disciples as they gazed upon 
the transfigured person of their Lord. The posses- 
sion oi~ a body like this may well be taken as a part 
of u the glory that shall be revealed in us.'* 

Hut " the King's daughter is all glorious within" 
also. And if this be true of the Church as a whole, 
it must be true of each of its members. Renewed in 
the image of God, they will be freed from the weak- 
nesses, the impurity, and the discord which sin has 
entailed upon them. All their powers will be so 
balanced and adjusted, that none will be in excess, 
none in defect. The understanding will no more 
mislead the affections; the heart will no more tyran- 
nize over the reason; the will and the conscience 
will blend in matchless harmony. There will be no 
11 law in the members warring against the law of the 
mind ;" no u lusting of the flesh against the Spirit;" 
no self-reproaches, no remorse, no confessions, no 
repentings. Very much of the conflict and trouble 
we experience here arises from the perversion or ill- 
working of affections in themselves innocent. These 
affections beguile us into attachments which at least 
menace the fealty we owe to God. They fasten upon 
irthly object with a strength and a fervor 
which, unless checked, might rob the Lord of 



Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 23 

Hosts of the paramount homage which is His due; 
and it is not easy to check them. 

" The fondness of a creature's love, 
How strong it strikes the sense ! 
Thither the warm affections move, 
Nor can we call them thence." 

Often it becomes needful to employ some painful 
chastisement as a means of dissolving the spell of 
these too ardent attachments ; and then it is left us 
to gather up the torn and scattered tendrils of our 
affections, and lead them back to Him from whom 
they should never have been severed. 

This trial will not be repeated in heaven. The 
ransomed will be in no danger of refusing to their 
Lord the reigning place in their hearts. Allied to 
each other, they will be with a love which is but 
dimly shadowed forth in the purest ties of earth; 
but this love will recruit itself perpetually from the 
still purer, nobler, more absorbing devotion with 
which every soul will cherish the image and the 
honor of" Him that sitteth upon the throne." 

In this particular not only, but in all others, there 
will be no danger of erring, since there will be no 
temptation even to go astray. There are few 
thoughts connected with the future glory more de- 
lightful than this, the absence of all temptation to 
sin. To spend age after age, cycle after cycle, yea, 
eternity itself, without being obliged to repel a single 



4 Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory* 



enticement to evil, this passes our comprehension. 

It seems a reach of blessedness almost too exalted 

even for a people redeemed by the blood of the 
Lamb. Yet it belongs essentially to the scriptural 
conception .of the " glory that shall be revealed" in 
the saints; and we must believe it true. 

It will meet with your ready response if knowl- 
edge be mentioned as another part of this glory. 
Reverence for intellect and knowledge is of the 
essence of our being. We bow before intellectual 
greatness with an unquestioning and willing homage. 
This universal instinct points to the destiny that 
awaits man hereafter, and the Bible confirms the 
mute prophecy. The disadvantages which wait upon 
the pursuit of knowledge here are too obvious to re- 
quire specific mention. Look at the long and toil- 
some process that we call " education ;" the time that 
must be spent in mastering the mere rudiments of 
learning; the score or so of years consumed in 
simply disciplining the faculties sufficiently to em- 
ploy them to any good purpose in the search after 
truth. And then what hinderances and drawbacks 
from every quarter to the prosecution of this work ! 
And how narrow a part of the vast field which invites 
attention is it given to the most successful scholars 
to explore before death steps in and arrests their 
labors! Perhaps there is no occasion upon which 
we feel more keenly the vanity and nothingness of 



Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 25 

earth, than when we stand by the bier of a great 
scholar, and see all that was mortal of such a man 
committed to the grave. It is a sad memento of the 
vanity of man as mortal, and we must needs lament 
that he could not transmit to some survivor the in- 
tellectual treasures he has spent a life in gathering. 
But let it not be assumed that these treasures perish 
with the clay tabernacle. Pervaded with the sanc- 
tifying principle of the new life, it is reasonable 
to presume that they share in the soul's immor- 
tality, and may serve as a foundation for that loftier 
culture which is to be carried forward in the life to 
come. 

Whether the methods of acquiring knowledge in 
that realm will bear any analogy to the processes we 
observe here is not apparent. We may be certain 
that study will bring neither perplexity nor fatigue. 
And it seems a rational presumption that intuition 
will largely supersede the slow and patient investi- 
gations which truth now exacts of her votaries. It 
will be something to be endowed with faculties of 
body and mind which are insusceptible of decay or 
weariness ; never to feel jaded and worn ; never to 
long to sit down and rest, or to find yourself invok- 
ing " balmy sleep" to come and refresh you. And 
no less auspicious will it be to have a place so near 
the great Source of knowledge, close by the throne 
of God. There, as here, the believer will see " but 

3 



jo Earthly Suffering and Heavenly (i/ory. 

parts of I lis ways;" for how shall any creature com- 
pass the Creator? But how wide the survey, as 
compared with the broadest sweep of vision accorded 
to the most favored of the race in this life! If we 
feel our amplest toil rewarded by the discoveries we 
make in the three great volumes of truth in this life, 
what will it be to turn over the august leaves under 
the cloudless light of the heaven of heavens ! to 
study the mysteries of creation, providence, and re- 
demption, in the beatific presence of Him from whom 
they all proceed, and in whom they find their con- 
summation ! These studies, too, will borrow an aug- 
mented interest from the companionship in which 
they are conducted. In this, as in many other as- 
pects, it is most interesting to reflect that the re- 
deemed will have the presence and sympathy of the 
angels. It may bring this home to our experience, 
to consider how much we should any of us prize the 
opportunity of meeting daily, as a friend, a man like 
Plato, or Newton, or Milton. What, then, must it 
be to be introduced into the society of those exalted 
beings who stand at the head of the intelligent crea- 
tion, and who have been observing the course of 
events throughout the universe for several thousand 
years ? Who shall compute the progress of the soul 
in knowledge, and the ever-growing enlargement of 
its faculties, when placed in circumstances like these? 
Surely we cannot err in specifying this as one of the 



Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory, 2 7 

elements of that " glory" which our apostle affirms 
is to be revealed in the saints. 

The form of expression here must be noted : 
" which shall be revealed in us." We have indicated 
knowledge and holiness as pertaining strictly to this 
conception. And it were easy to specify other per- 
sonal characteristics of the righteous ; but St. Paul 
has in view something too grand and imposing to be 
reached in this way. As in explanation of the text 
he adds : " For the earnest expectation of the creature 
waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God." 
And he goes on with singular sublimity and power 
to describe the whole creation as groaning and trav- 
ailing in pain together, in anxious and longing ex- 
pectation of the great epiphany of the redeemed, 
when they shall be seen as they are. All nature 
waits for this " manifestation [Gr., apocalypse~\ of the 
sons of God." Then all nature — all worlds — are 
concerned in it. The "sons of God" he styles them. 
And still more significantly in the verse preceding 
the text, u heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." 
These expressions baffle us. We cannot take them 
in. But this we know : they savor of a glory which 
" passeth knowledge." They point to the glory of 
the uncreated One: to "the glory which the Son had 
with the Father before the world was," augmented 
by the splendors of His Mediatorial throne. In this 
glory the ransomed are to share; for they, too, are 



28 Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 

sons of God and joint-heirs with Christ. This glory 
is to be put upon them. And here is what is meant 
by the u manifestation of the sons of God," — their 
being arrayed in the glory of their Lord and Saviour, 
in the presence of the universe. It is not merely the 
inherent glory of their perfected humanity; nor the 
glory of their final triumph over death and hell ; nor 
the glory of the bright abode and the blessed fellow- 
ship into which they will have been introduced ; but 
with and above all these glories, the yet more efful- 
gent glory reflected upon them from their glorified 
Head and Prince, Himself " the Brightness of the 
Father's glory." This is to be their " manifestation." 
And that, because He has purposes to accomplish by 
it reaching far beyond themselves. Redemption has 
cost Him an infinite sum; and while He will account 
no blessedness too great for a people ransomed at 
such a price, He will also make the love and the 
mercy and the wisdom and the glory He lavishes 
upon them, subservient to His own glory throughout 
the universe. We have a hint of this in that saying 
of the apostle, "to the intent that now unto the prin- 
cipalities and powers in heavenly places might be 
known [made known] by the Church the manifold 
wisdom of God." (Kph. iii. 10.) Not earth and hell 
only, but all heaven, shall come to the "manifestation 
of the sons of (iod." Cherubim and Seraphim shall 
find their grandeur paled before the glory in which 



Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 29 

He clothes the blood-washed company. From dis- 
tant spheres and systems, possibly, the tribes of holy, 
happy denizens shall hasten to behold the strange, 
surpassing glory of these redeemed sinners ; and to 
learn from them lessons excelling all that they had 
gathered in a sinless life of ages, concerning the wis- 
dom, and the might, the love, and the mercy, of the 
Deity. Nor is this to pass away as a mere coronation 
pageant. The honor shown them in their resplendent 
" manifestation" will be perpetuated. The visions 
of the apocalypse reveal them as having their perma- 
nent abode in heaven, in the immediate presence of 
their exalted and reigning Lord. The lustre in which 
they shine is not like the transitory splendors with 
which the western horizon is often aglow as the sun 
goes to his rest ; nor like the pomp and state which 
wait upon an earthly prince through life, and then 
disappear with him in the tomb. It is the glory 
emanating from personal qualities impressed with 
the highest conceivable moral excellence, enhanced 
by the possession of a happiness absolutely complete 
and perfect, and transfused and heightened by the 
reflected glory of their King which covers them as 
with a robe of immortal light and beauty. 

We are dealing with themes beyond our reach. 
But even the faint conceptions we are able to form of 
that world may suffice to illustrate the judgment of 
the apostle : " I reckon that the sufferings of this 

3* 



30 Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 



present time are not worthy to be compared with 
the glory that shall be revealed in us." This avowal 
becomes still more significant when he supplies, as 
he has elsewhere done, the link which unites the suf- 
fering and the glory. It is not as though they were 
independent of each other; as though out of His 
mere pleasure God had assigned to His people an 
allotment of sorrow here and an allotment of joy 
there, with no recognized relation between the two. 
" For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, 
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory." (2 Cor. iv. 17.) The affliction is in 
order to the glory : it has (as sanctified) a positive 
and most important agency in preparing believers for 
their future triumph. This is everywhere the doc- 
trine of the Bible. It is too large a subject to be 
discussed here; nor can this be necessary. For who 
does not know that "whom the Lord loveth He chas- 
teneth ;" and that the troubles of life are the crucible 
in which He purges His people of their dross and 
refines their graces? It is by this needful discipline 
lie teaches them their frailty and dependence, hum- 
bles their pride, lays open the corruption of their 
hearts, exposes to them the vanity of the world, 
warns them against temptation, makes them prize 
the tenderness and constancy of their Redeemer, 
inspires them with a ready sympathy in the trials of 
others, weans them from earth and sense, brings them 



Earthly Stiff ering and Heavenly Glory. 3 1 

nearer and nearer to Himself, and thus gradually 
prepares them for their rest. It is in this view, as 
hinted in the opening of the present discourse, and 
in this alone, that a man who had passed through the 
accumulated sufferings of the apostle, could speak of 
the whole as " a light affliction" lasting only " for a 
moment." What is any affliction when balanced 
against "an exceeding and eternal weight of glory?" 

This was Paul's judgment. It should be ours. 
Are you ready, my brethren, to accept it ? 

There are not a few here for whom this question 
will have a peculiar significance. It is because suf- 
fering and sorrow are all around us that I have 
brought the subject before you. Many of these 
afflictions are open and visible. There are others 
which prey upon the heart in secret, too sad to invite 
the partnership and sympathy of any human bosom. 
But to one and all of these sufferers, however varied, 
however severe, however protracted your sorrows, 
the apostle addresses his consolatory, triumphant 
language, " I reckon that the sufferings of this pres- 
ent time are not worthy to be compared with the 
glory that shall be revealed in us." Let the thought 
come home to you, " What is the suffering to the 
glory?" Let it dwell upon your minds. Recall it 
in your seasons of despondency, when you are 
pressed with the corroding cares of poverty; when 
you have to struggle with some subtle disease which 



32 Earthly Suffering and Heave7ily Glory. 



sets upon you like a strong man armed; when you 
are stung with ingratitude; when you encounter the 
indifference and rudeness of the selfish great; when 
the sense of your bereavements comes over you with 
the might and the desolation of a spring torrent : — 
"What is the suffering to the glory?" Turn away 
from earth to heaven. Send your thoughts onward 
and upward to the bright " manifestation of the sons 
of God," in which you hope to have a share; to that 
effulgent glory which infolds the pious dead, and 
will, in due time, infold you. 

What think they now of the sorrows which cheq- 
uered their earthly lot? Are they counting the 
weary steps of their pilgrimage? Are they descant- 
ing upon the thorns that pierced their feet, and the 
rocks over which they stumbled, and the storms that 
beat upon their heads, and the hunger and thirst 
that beset them, as they slowly wended their way 
toward the holy city? Do they recall the priva- 
tions and losses, the disappointments and tears, of 
this life with the feeling that their sufferings here 
were something vast, appalling, overwhelming? 
Oh, no. Could you bring down the very martyrs 
who were hunted like wild beasts, and tortured with 
the most refined and protracted cruelties, they would 
tell you, with one accord, that these were " light 
afflictions," not worthy of a moment's thought 
amidst the ineffable glory to which they conducted 



Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 33 

them. And just in proportion as your faith and 
hope can lift you up to the contemplation of this 
glory as a sublime reality, will you feel that your 
sufferings are " not worthy to be compared" with 
it. " For a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness 
through manifold temptations." But consider the 
end your Father designs by it : " that the trial of 
your faith being much more precious than of gold 
that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be 
found unto praise and honor and glory at the appear- 
ing of Jesus Christ." " Rejoice," then, " inasmuch 
as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when 
His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also 
with exceeding joy." It was " for the joy set before 
Him He endured the cross, despising the shame;" 
and if His people " suffer, they shall also reign with 
Him." His joy is their joy; His glory, their glory. 
And all the more will this meet your case, because 
it will fully satisfy that inward craving after your 
Saviour's love which you felt so keenly, and with 
such painful misgivings, in the days of your exile. 

I have spoken of knowledge and holiness as essen- 
tial elements of the glory to be revealed in the saints, 
and of that Divine glory in which they are to be 
arrayed, reserving for this place a closing reference 
to one other ingredient in that cup of bliss. Were 
it unchastened language to say that even this tri- 
fold glory would not have been complete without 



34 Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 



the presence of still another element? I hope not. 
For it is the nature God has given us: — we cannot 
live without love. There is no human heart that does 
not yearn after love. If it were a possible thing that 
heaven should be heaven without love, what would 
all its glories be to creatures formed as we are? 
Pure intellect might live upon simple, abstract truth; 
but the heart, never. We love before we know. 
The affections are through life the chief sources and 
inlets of pleasure (as of pain also) ; and we are not 
left in doubt as to the point, that we carry this same 
nature with us into eternity, as our Master did be- 
fore us. Blessed be God, He has made ample pro- 
vision for this law of our being in the future world. 
The glory to be revealed in His people is like the 
sun : it warms as well as shines. Redemption itself 
began in love, the infinite love of the Father. It 
achieved its crowning triumph in the boundless love 
of the Son. It is carried forward in our world by 
the unwearied love of the Spirit. The first emotion 
it enkindles in the renewed heart is love to its Deliv- 
erer. This love it enthrones as the dominant power 
of the soul. It burns with an inconstant but un- 
quenched flame through life, and burns on with a 
purer fervor after death, there, as here, pointing ever 
to Him by whose love it was enkindled. Yes, and 
there far more than here, assured of His love not 
only, but loving and being loved by all with whom 



Earthly Suffering and Heavenly Glory. 35 

it shared the hopes and fears of the Christian conflict 
on earth. We may not say that the " family" will 
re-appear in heaven, and our earthly friendships be 
renewed precisely as they exist here. But are these 
ties to be ruptured forever? Are these sacred at- 
tachments to be finally dissolved ? Are the moulds 
in which the whole form and structure of our being 
has been cast to be so shivered by the stroke of the 
destroyer, that the fragments can never be gathered 
up and re-fashioned in some loftier type hereafter ? 
No, my brethren, it cannot be. The voice of nature 
— of the new nature — on this point is confirmed by 
numerous intimations of the inspired writers ; and 
we feel warranted in saying that the coming glory 
will bring you not only the perfect love of your Re- 
deemer, but the tender, quenchless love of those 
who are one in Christ with you here. And beyond 
this hallowed circle — wherever there are ransomed 
sinners or rapt seraphs — you will love and be loved 
with a fervor and a constancy known only to those 
who have received their crowns. 

Let this reflection assuage your grief as you 
dwell upon your sainted dead. Let it inflame your 
gratitude to Him who has admitted them, and will 
admit you to His love. And let it impress the con- 
viction deeply upon your hearts, that " the sufferings 
of this present time are not worthy to be compared 
with the glory that shall be revealed in us." 



WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 



Matthew xxii. 42. 



" What think ye of Christ?" 

Our Saviour had shown His skill in answering 
questions; now He displays His sagacity in asking 
one. First the Pharisees and Herodians had tried 
to ensnare Him by the insidious question : " Master, 
is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?" Then 
the Sadducees, by inquiring concerning the woman 
with the seven husbands: "Whose wife shall she be 
in the resurrection ?" And then a " lawyer," put for- 
ward by the Pharisees again, by asking: "Which is 
the great commandment in the law ?" All were con- 
founded and silenced by His replies, and then He in 
turn puts a test question to His inquisitors: " What 
think ye of Christ? whose Son is He?" They an- 
swered correctly, "The Son of David;" not antici- 
pating the question which this answer would invite: 
11 How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord, say- 
ing, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my 
36 



U licit think ye of Christ ? $j 

right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. 
If David then call Him Lord, how is He his Son?" 
They saw, perhaps, where this was likely to carry 
them, and made no reply. It cured them of asking 
Him questions. 

Every one sees how pregnant a question this was 
with the Jews: "What think ye of Christ?" It is 
no less significant with us. There is far more in- 
volved in it than meets the eye. If we were properly 
alive to its importance, it would be as much can- 
vassed and talked about in all circles as the alleged 
Messiahship of Jesus was during His public ministry 
throughout the towns and villages of Judea. It is 
of as much moment to us to have right thoughts of 
Christ as it was to the Hebrews to know whether or 
not He was their predicted deliverer, whose kingdom 
should break in pieces and consume all other king- 
doms, and stand forever. Nor is this a matter which 
affects a few individuals only, or which pertains 
merely to Churches and Christian professors. It 
concerns us all. The individual cannot be found 
who has not a deeper stake in the question, " What 
thinkest thou of Christ?" than he has in any and all 
questions pertaining to his business, his family, his 
country, and all other earthly interests combined. 
On this topic I propose to enlarge. It is my purpose 
to illustrate the pre-eminent importance of the ques- 
tion, " What think ye of Christ?" by way of inciting 

4 



38 // r hat think ye of Christ? 



those who may listen to this discourse to compare 
their views of Christ with the teachings of Holy 
Scripture, and to examine into the practical influence 
these views exert upon their hearts and lives. 

I. Your entire theological creed must, logically, be 
determined by the answer you give to this question. 

It is no isolated or subordinate topic to which the 
inquiry points, but one that touches the very founda- 
tions of religion. Our religion takes its designation 
from Christ. We ourselves bear His name. And it 
is His name which divides off the nations that have 
received the Bible from those which have not received 
it. Whatever importance, therefore, may attach to 
an inquiry into the nature of Christianity must attach 
to the question, " What think ye of Christ ?" So 
far from being a mere incident in a theological sys- 
tem, the position assigned to Christ will be decisive 
of the whole scheme. So implicated is this doctrine 
with the other essential truths of revelation, that they 
uniformly and necessarily derive their coloring from 
the views which are entertained respecting the Medi- 
ator. This will not appear surprising when it is con- 
sidered that it is a controverted question concerning 
Christ whether He is God or man; the Creator and 
Lord of all, or a mere creature. It is unavoidable 
that a scheme of faith shall receive a positive and 
controlling impress, according as one or the other of 
two elements so infinitely dissimilar is infused into it. 



What think ye of Christ f 39 

A system which recognizes the self-existent and un- 
searchable Deity as pervading every part of it, dis- 
charging its chief functions, and administering all its 
affairs, cannot blend with a system in which these 
offices are devolved upon a creature. Nor is jt 
material what may be the rank and endowments of 
that creature. The difficulty is not obviated by mak- 
ing Christ an angelic or super-angelic being; unless 
you could simultaneously abridge the attributes of 
the Infinite One and bring the amplitude of His na- 
ture within the compass of our conceptions. While 
God remains God, you do absolutely nothing towards 
lessening the disparity between Him and His " only- 
begotten Son," by exalting the latter to a precedence, 
indefinite if you will (so it does not overpass the 
limits of created nature), above the Seraphim. The 
approximation you effect of the creature to the Crea- 
tor, by this arrangement, is less than the measure of 
assimilation to the intelligence and wisdom of an 
angel, involved in a single day's progress of a new- 
born infant. For here there is some conceivable pro- 
portion between the terms of the comparison; which 
there cannot be where one term is finite and the 
other infinite. 

The resolution of this question concerning the 
proper rank and authority of Christ, I have said, 
must tell upon every leading point of theology ; pre- 
cisely (for the illustration is not too strong) as the 



40 / / r hat think ye of Christ ? 



position assigned to the sun must rule any planetary 
theory. Its connection with the conceptions we form 
of the nature of the Godhead is too palpable to re- 
quire comment. According as we hold to one or 
another belief respecting the person of Christ, do 
we admit or deny a Trinity in unity in the Supreme 
Being. And a thorough analysis of the conflicting 
views on this point will lead us out, by a logical 
necessity, into one or the other of two incompatible 
systems covering the whole ground of man's moral 
character and condition, the design and efficacy of 
the crucifixion, the offices of the Holy Spirit, the 
mode of reconciliation to God, the nature of true 
worship, and, in fine, the entire Gospel economy. 

2. It is only giving this general observation a 
specific direction to remark, that your answer to the 
question, " What think ye of Christ?" must deter- 
mine your views of the way of salvation. Wherever 
the Gospel is known, the profound and solemn in- 
quiry, "What must I do to be saved?" affiliates itself 
in every breast with another inquiry: " What was the 
nature and design of Christ's mission to our world?" 
And on this point there is an endless diversity of 
sentiment. There are those, as already hinted, who 
see in Jesus of Nazareth simply a man of prc-emi- 
nent purity and benevolence, an incarnation of all 
the virtues, who, having instructed the world by His 
wisdom and improved it by His piety, consummated 



What think ye of Christ ? 41 

a life radiant with goodness by a death of corre- 
spondent meekness and resignation; and thus taught 
us in the most touching of all methods the two most 
important and difficult of all lessons, how to live and 
how to die. Others go quite beyond this, in that they 
yield a speculative assent to the orthodox formulas 
of faith, and recognize the fact of an atonement. 
But why, precisely, an atonement was necessary, or 
what the atonement was, are points concerning which 
they have no definite ideas. Indeed, they do not 
much concern themselves about the subject. Scrip- 
tural views of the atonement are inseparable from 
certain impressions respecting human nature, which 
this class of persons find somewhat irksome. By 
depreciating the evil to be removed by the death of 
Christ, they of course lower the significance of His 
sacrifice, and open the way for perverting it to very 
mischievous purposes. " Jesus Christ is regarded 
rather as having added to our moral advantages, than 
as having conferred that without which all the rest 
were in vain ; rather as having made the passage to 
a happy futurity somewhat more commodious, than 
as having formed the passage itself over what had 
else been an impassable gulf." If He is in terms 
acknowledged as a Saviour, it is really in the illusive 
and irreverent sense of His having put us in a situ- 
ation where we may save ourselves ; or of supple- 
menting our imperfect righteousness by the merit of 

4* 



42 / / T hat think ye of C % hrist f 



1 lis own obedience. Christ is not to them " wisdom 
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." 
They are very little in sympathy with the spirit of a 
passage like this : " I count all things but loss that I 
may win Christ and be found in Him, not having 
mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that 
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteous- 
ness which is of God by faith." Christ occupies no 
such place as this in their scheme. They are, in fact, 
essaying to get to heaven by the abrogated covenant 
of works; by a refined legalism which, though pre- 
tending to honor Christ, impugns all His offices. 

This is a very common and very dangerous error. 
It has been in the Church from the days of the apos- 
tles until now. It marred their work, as it continues 
to mar the work of those who preach the same glori- 
ous Gospel. " O foolish Galatians, . . . this only 
would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the 
works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are 
ye so foolish ? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now 
made perfect by the flesh ?" " If righteousness come 
by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." If salvation 
be " by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise 
grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then 
is it no more grace : otherwise work is no more 
work." These two schemes can no more coalesce 
than fire and water. We must be saved wholly by 
Christ's merits or wholly by our own. He will have 



TJ licit think ye of Christ ? 43 

the entire glory of our salvation, or He will have 
none. He came into the world "to save sinners;" 
not to make it practicable for them to save them- 
selves ; not to impress a saving efficacy upon their 
services or upon their prayers ; not to transfer His 
own merit to His church and make that a Saviour in 
His stead; not to act any subordinate part in the 
deliverance of the race from sin, but to "save" them. 
And those who decline receiving Him as a Saviour, 
in the plenary import of this term, must not hope to 
make His intervention subservient to their salvation 
through some scheme which will exempt them from 
the humiliation of confessing that they are in them- 
selves miserable sinners, too polluted even to think 
a good thought and too impotent to perform a single 
righteous act. 

There is still another error, tending to the same 
pernicious result, in respect to the design of Christ's 
incarnation. Those who have embraced it, if asked, 
"What think ye of Christ?" would reply: "We 
think that He came into the world to save sinners, 
but not by enduring the penalty of the law in their 
stead. The object of punishment under the Divine 
government is to prevent crime and promote the 
good of the universe. The ground of Christ's suf- 
ferings lies neither in the inherent ill-desert of sin, 
nor in the inflexibility of the moral law, nor yet in 
the essential repugnance of the Divine holiness to all 



44 What think ye of Christ? 



sin. There is nothing in the character or the law of 

God to forbid the suspension of the penalty and the 
pardon of the sinner, provided only that some expe- 
dient can be devised to exhibit to the universe His 
abhorrence of sin, and to deter others from rebellion. 
This was what Christ came to accomplish. He did 
not stand in the ' law-place' of His people. His 
sufferings were not in any sense legal : they consti- 
tuted no part of that curse which was threatened 
against the transgressor. The whole legal system 
has been suspended, at least for the present, in order 
to make way for the operation of one of a different 
character. In introducing this system of mercy, 
which involves a suspension of the penal curse, God 
has required a satisfaction to the principles of general 
or public justice ; a satisfaction which will effectually 
secure all the good to the universe which is intended 
to be accomplished by the penalty of the law when 
inflicted, and at the same time prevent all that prac- 
tical mischief which would result from arresting the 
hand of primitive justice without the intervention of 
an atonement. In this way it has become practi- 
cable for the sinner to be saved without jeoparding 
the great moral interests of the universe. We do 
not say that his salvation is secured by this arrange- 
ment. All that the atonement has effected for the 
sinner is to place him within the reach of pardon. 
The door is open. Mercy can now operate." 



What think ye of Christ ? 45 

This ingenious speculation cannot stand. Un- 
doubtedly one end of the death of Christ was to 
exhibit God's abhorrence of sin, and to deter others 
from sinning. But these ends can be accomplished 
only in subserviency to that which the Scriptures 
make the great design of this transaction, viz., to 
satisfy the claims of Divine justice against sinners 
by a strictly vicarious and adequate atonement. If 
the Bible teaches any doctrine, it is that Christ Jesus 
died as an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of His 
people ; that He stood in their place, bore their sins, 
endured the curse for them, and thus secured their 
salvation. He was " made the Surety of a better 
testament/' He "bore our sins in His own body on 
the tree." He was "made sin for us." " In whom 
we have redemption through His blood." " Thou 
hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood." " Who 
gave Himself a ransom for all." " Christ hath re- 
deemed us from the curse of the law, being made 
a curse for us." "The blood of Jesus Christ, His 
Son, cleanseth us from all sin." This is the current 
phraseology of the Scriptures. It is the burden of 
prophecy. It pervades and vitalizes the whole Le- 
vitical ritual. It is the constant teaching of the Re- 
deemer Himself. It is the harmonious, joyful testi- 
mony of the apostles. It is the sublime song of the 
redeemed in heaven. All, all concur in declaring, 
not that Christ died for the good of the universe in 



46 What think ye of Chris/ f 



general, but to redeem His people from the curse of 

the law, and make them kings and priests unto God 
and I lis Father. That the good of the universe will 
be promoted by His intervention in various ways, 
in many, doubtless, of which we can form no con- 
ception, will be readily admitted. That it must, in 
particular, impress all intelligent creatures with God's 
holiness and justice, and His determination to punish 
sin, is no less evident on the true view of Christ's 
sufferings. But how is this result to follow, if His 
sufferings were not legal; if the iniquities of His 
people were not visited upon Him; if His death was 
simply an imposing pageant, "a satisfaction to the 
principles of general or public justice," in which the 
victim was no representative or substitute of trans- 
gressors, and His sufferings had no specific reference 
to individuals ? If He voluntarily assumed the legal 
responsibilities of sinners, and, with a perfect right 
to dispose of His own life, offered Himself as their 
Surety, it is easy to see how His death might illus- 
trate the Divine justice and the evil of sin. But 
where is the justice of consigning Him to the cross, 
if, being spotless and innocent Himself, He had no 
legal liabilities for the offences of others? How 
lid His death exhibit God's abhorrence of sin, and 
repress disobedience in others, when He did not, in 
any intelligible sense of the terms, bear the penalty 
of sin ? And if the principles upon which the Di- 



What think ye of Christ ? 47 

vine government had been administered were to be 
" suspended," and an amnesty published to our race, 
why could not this be done without subjecting the 
Son of God to the humiliation and agony of the 
cross ? How could this transaction guard the Divine 
clemency from abuse, or make it safe to exercise it ? 
With the views of the atonement which you, Chris- 
tian brethren, find on every page of the Bible, these 
questions are easily answered ; but they admit of no 
rational solution on the scheme I am examining. 

Nor is it a trivial objection to this scheme, that it 
leaves the salvation of men in a most precarious and 
uncertain state. All that it does is " to place the 
sinner within the reach of pardon !" You have not 
so learned Christ. It is your comfort to know that 
His people will certainly be saved; that in the same 
covenant which stipulated for His substitution their 
coming to Christ was guaranteed ; that as He was 
" made sin" for them, so they shall be u made the 
righteousness of God in Him;" that, "having made 
His soul an offering for sin," He shall, without fail, 
u see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied." 
But I have no disposition to enlarge upon this topic. 
It has simply been adduced as one of the popular 
errors of the day, which go to disparage the sacer- 
dotal work of the Redeemer, and to beguile the 
unstable into perilous paths. It is apposite to my 
present purpose, as exhibiting another of the ways 



48 / / licit think ye of Christ ? 



in which even serious-minded persons may entertain 
unworthy thoughts of Christ, and as showing that 
the views we take of His mission must be decisive 
in moulding our conceptions of the method of sal- 
vation. 

3. Restricted as I am by the magnitude of this 
subject to mere hints, I observe, in the third place, 
that the importance of the question, " What think ye 
of Christ?" may be seen in the fact that your anszver 
to it will decide your w/iole character and experience. 

There are two very different types of virtue or 
u goodness" current in every Christian community. 
One is the good man of the world, the other is the 
good man of the Bible. Both have some amiable 
qualities in common, but an analysis of the two re- 
spectively would show that they are made up of very 
dissimilar materials. Not to go into this analysis 
beyond the exigencies of the present argument, there 
is no point in respect to which these two typical men 
will be found to differ more widely than in their feel- 
ings towards the Son of God. The good man of the 
world, whom we meet with so constantly in our po- 
lite literature, " never talks with affectionate devotion 
of Christ as the Great High Priest of his profession, 
as the exalted Friend, whose injunctions are the laws 
of his virtues, whose work and sacrifice are the basis 
of his hopes, whose doctrines guide and awe his 
reasonings, and whose example is the pattern which 



What think ye of Christ ? 49 

he is earnestly aspiring to resemble. The last intel- 
lectual and moral designations in the world by which 
it would occur to you to describe him, would be those 
by which the apostles so much exulted to be recog- 
nized—a disciple, and a servant, of Jesus Christ; nor 
would he (I am supposing this character to become 
a real person) be at all gratified by being so described. 
You do not hear him avowing that he deems the 
habitual remembrance of Christ essential to the na- 
ture of that excellence which he is cultivating. He 
rather seems, with the utmost coolness of choice, 
adopting virtue as according with the dignity of a 
rational agent, than to be in the least degree impelled 
to it by any relations with the Saviour of the world."* 
On the other hand, nothing is more observable in 
the character of an enlightened and earnest Christian 
than the prominence which Christ has in his whole 
interior life. So far from shunning the mention of 
His name or referring in an occasional and formal 
manner merely to the assistance he has received 
from the contemplation of so rare an " example" of 
virtue, he is bold to confess that he derives from 
Christ his very spiritual life. The life which he lives, 
he lives by the faith of the Son of God; nay, it is not 
he that lives, but Christ lives in him. The sentiment 
which sways his entire being is the constraining love 

* Foster : Essay iv. 
5 



50 / / r hat think ye of C lirist f 



of Christ The end for which he lives is not himself, 
not his own ease, honor, or aggrandizement, but 

Christ : it is Christ for him to live. To be taught of 
Christ; to bear the yoke of Christ; to bring others 
to Christ; to extend the empire of Christ; if need be, 
to suffer for Christ, — this constitutes his life. To 
the blood of Christ he looks for pardon. On the 
righteousness of Christ he rests his hope of heaven. 
The commands of Christ are his rule of duty. The 
arm of Christ is his defence in danger. The sym- 
pathy of Christ is his comfort in affliction. The in- 
tercession of Christ is his reliance under conscious 
ill-desert and backsliding. The reign of Christ is 
his confidence amidst all changes. In a word, he 
has no higher aim or aspiration than to bear the 
image, and do the will, of Christ here, and to dwell 
with Christ hereafter. 

Nor is there anything mysterious in this. It re- 
sults from the very nature of the case that where 
Christ is fully received into the heart, He must 
assume the chief place, and subordinate all its 
powers and passions to himself. I am not speak- 
ing of a mere nominal piety ; nor of a faith which, 
however genuine, is enervated by error and sin; but 
of that cordial and thorough reception of the Saviour 
which the word of God enjoins and so many of its 
illustrious personages exemplify. It is impossible 
that such a faith in Christ should be other than a 



What think ye of Christ ? 5 1 

dominant principle in the heart. That Divine Spirit 
who implanted it has interwoven all its sister graces 
with it. The admission of the Gospel doctrine re- 
specting the Redeemer necessarily draws the whole 
body of revealed truth with it — history and prophecy, 
dogma and precept, threatening and promise. You 
cannot, i.e., you cannot consistently, receive Christ 
as a Saviour without receiving Him as a King : you 
cannot give Him your heart without dedicating to 
Him your property, your talents, your children, and 
whatever you may esteem as of peculiar value : you 
cannot honor Him in His person without honoring 
His word and ordinances : you can have no union 
with Him which will not identify you with Him in 
sympathy and in interest, and make His glory your 
aim, and the prosperity of His kingdom your chief 
joy. 

This will exhibit the importance of the question, 
" What think ye of Christ?" as supplying a key-note 
to the whole character and life. Where a man thinks 
of Christ as the apostles thought of Him, he will be 
like the apostles in his principles, aims, and conduct. 
Where one has no sympathy with them in their 
estimate of the Saviour, there will be a corresponding 
difference in the motives by which he is impelled to 
action and in the sources from which he draws his 
happiness. He may, in this latter case, be an up- 
right and benevolent man, in an important sense, a 



5 2 What think ye of Christ ? 



good man ; but it is not the style of goodness which 
flows from faith in Christ. It is not the goodness 
which puts a man in communion with the spirit that 
pervades the apostolic writings. Those writings, on 
the contrary, will be likely to strike him as mystical 
and repulsive. He will not appreciate the allusions 
with which they abound to the Saviour and the 
cross. And the authors will appear to him to in- 
dulge in a vein approaching the fanciful or the ex- 
travagant in the language they use respecting the 
love of Christ. 

This discrepance is significant and monitory. It 
not only shows that the character formed on the 
basis of that system usually denominated " evangel- 
ical" is radically unlike the character formed on any 
other basis, but it suggests the inquiry, how far the 
virtue which is dissevered from faith in Christ, " the 
goodness which is without godliness," will bear to 
be tried by the law and the testimony. The mere 
hint of any distrust on this point is apt to evoke a 
protest against " uncharitableness." But there is no 
uncharitableness in the case. It is a simple question 
of fact, whether the morality, like the theology, of 
the New Testament, derives its life and power from 
the cross ; and whether the goodness which rejects 
a suffering and reigning Saviour, or acknowledges 
Him only in some casual or secondary manner, can 
be that " holiness without which no man shall see 



What think ye of Christ ? 53 

the Lord." The more this point is looked into, the 
more manifest will it become that we have not ex- 
aggerated the gravity of the question, " What think 
ye of Christ ?" 

4. I observe once more, that upon the answers 
given to this question will depend (in so far as the 
nominally Christian world is concerned) the awards 
of the last day. 

This announcement may at first seem to you to 
be in conflict with the only detailed account of the 
judgment contained in the New Testament (Matt. 
xxv. 31-46). But if you examine that account, you 
will perceive that the various offices of humanity 
and benevolence of which the Saviour speaks, are 
offices rendered or refused to His disciples, and of 
which He Himself therefore was the real object. 
11 Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least 
of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" 
" Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of 
these, ye did it not to me" Kindnesses bestowed 
upon His afflicted disciples — the sick, the hungry, 
the naked, the imprisoned — are proofs and tokens 
of love to their Master; and the withholding of 
these kindnesses is an evidence of want of love to 
Him. So that the real question at the Great Assize 
will still be, "What think ye of Christ?" "Are 
your faith and love fastened upon Christ; and has 
this appeared in your treatment of His disciples?" 

5* 



54 What think ye of Chris/ f 



By this test are we to stand or fall. The inquest 
will not be as to our social position, our wealth, 
learning, rank, or occupation. It will not be, " Were 
you upright in your dealings, and charitable to the 
poor?" It will not be, "Were you baptized, and 
had you a place at the Lord's table?'' Nor, "Were 
you zealous in making proselytes, and bold in assert- 
ing the prerogatives of the Church?" But, "What 
think ye of Christ?" And according as we answer 
this question shall we rise and reign with Christ in 
glory, or be banished from His presence. If this 
be a Scriptural representation, it throws around the 
inquiry we are dealing with an aspect of solemnity 
which nothing could enhance. For whatever of 
happiness and of woe may be bound up in the in- 
terminable issues of the judgment, in the felicity of 
the ransomed and the misery of the lost, is involved 
in the question, " What think ye of Christ?" 

Let Christian professors, then, bring home this 
question to their hearts with the force of a per- 
sonal application. My brethren, " What think ye 
of Christ?" What think ye of His Person? Is He 
to you the second Person of the adorable Trinity, 
co-eternal and coequal with the Father and the Spirit; 
the Creator and Mediatorial Governor of the universe; 
and as such worthy the homage of all creatures? 
What think ye of His cross? Do you behold Him 



What think ye of Christ ? 55 

there as the Surety and Substitute of lost sinners ; 
assuming our law-place ; enduring the penalty of our 
sins ; " made a curse for us ;" satisfying on our be- 
half the claims of Divine justice ; and in the plenary 
fulness of His atonement magnifying the law and, 
if that were possible, investing the moral perfections 
of the Godhead with a more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory? What think ye of His righteous- 
ness ? Have you renounced all reliance upon your 
own precarious and insufficient virtue, upon your 
honesty and your almsgiving, your prayers and your 
sacraments, and made it your one great concern to 
win Christ and be clothed with His righteousness as 
the only foundation of your hope of heaven? What 
think ye of His sovereignty? Do you rejoice in His 
universal dominion, commit your interests into His 
hands, serve Him with a generous and inflexible loy- 
alty, and do all you can to bring others to submit to 
His benign sceptre ? What think ye of His love ? 
Does it inspire your praises, restrain your passions, 
inflame your zeal, and draw you heavenward with a 
constancy that suffers no abatement and an ardor 
that never droops ? What think ye of His worship? 
Do you love the habitation of His house, the place 
where His honor dwelleth ; and do you know what 
it is to come daily to His feet and say, with a grate- 
ful and confiding heart, " My Lord ! and my God !" 
Such were Paul's thoughts of Christ. So the mar- 



56 J I r hat think ye of Christ f 

tyrs of all ages have thought of Him. So multitudes 
in our own day think of Him. And if you are par- 
takers of this grace with them, God has dealt most 
mercifully with you, and has a large claim upon your 
gratitude. This you will best manifest by keeping 
your thoughts fixed upon Christ, by striving after a 
clearer insight into the great mystery of Godliness, 
and a more comprehensive knowledge of the Re- 
deemer's character and offices. There are wonders 
here the angels desire to look into, and which may 
well employ their exalted powers. It is a science of 
which even the devout student of fourscore has mas- 
tered only the rudiments. We stand where the wave 
breaks upon the shore, and look abroad upon an 
ocean which stretches off into the infinite and loses 
itself in the depths of eternity. We can never know 
the incarnate Deity so completely that the fulness 
of His nature and the effects of His mediation will 
not offer to our contemplation the same affluent and 
boundless expanse which they do to-day. And if 
at some distant period, after you shall have spent 
millions of ages in the study of these sublime and 
animating themes amidst the radiant splendors of 
the throne itself, the question should be again pro- 
pounded, " What think ye of Christ?" you will be 
as read)- as you are at this hour to confess that you 
have only begun to explore the glories of redemp- 
tion, and are as far as ever from comprehending the 



What think ye of Christ ? 57 

height and depth and breadth and length of the love 
of Christ which passeth knowledge. 

Passing by other classes, I may be allowed a clos- 
ing word to those who are addicted to liberal studies, 
to the men of culture and of science, who may, per- 
adventure, be quite out of sympathy with a discussion 
like that we have been engaged in, and who are more 
likely to be repelled than attracted by a specific ap- 
plication to themselves of the question, " What think 
ye of Christ?" It is a supposable case that this 
question might awaken in some of your breasts 
emotions bordering upon disdain, so uncongenial is 
it with those sedate philosophical views on religion 
which you are fond of indulging. Or if this be not 
the precise ground you stand upon, you may candidly 
acknowledge that the subject is one on which you 
have bestowed but little careful reflection, so that 
you are scarcely prepared to say what you " think 
of Christ." 

Now without venturing far into a field which, under 
other circumstances, it might be very profitable to 
traverse, will you indulge me in the suggestion that 
indifference to this subject — still more, contempt for 
it — seems wholly incongruous to the reputation to 
which you aspire? As educated men, you claim to 
be lovers of truth, and eager for the acquisition of 
knowledge. You delight in exploring the arcana of 
nature. You range through the vegetable world 



58 J J licit think ye of Christ f 



from the hyssop on the wall to the cedar of Leba- 
non. Your cabinets are filled with the spoils of the 
mines and the sea. You soar aloft and follow the 
stars in their courses with a rapture which belongs 
rather to the joyousness of childhood than to the 
gravity of age. You exult over the acquisition of 
an unchronicled worm or butterfly. Or, employing 
your powers in other fields, you are rifling of their 
treasures the rich depositories of history and archae- 
ology. You are pushing your researches with an 
honorable professional pride into the labyrinths of 
jurisprudence or the more subtle mysteries of medi- 
cine. You are absorbed with theories of social reform ; 
with discussions on government and politics ; or with 
schemes of education. And when we break in upon 
you in your eager search after truth with the ques- 
tion, "What think ye of Christ?" you well-nigh re- 
gard it as an intrusion. You at least feel for the 
time that it is an ungracious interruption ; an attempt 
to divert you from studies of real interest and im- 
portance, to an investigation which may better than 
not be postponed to some undefined future. Gen- 
uine philosophy, let me assure you, without offence, 
has as little to do with this feeling as piety. For 
Who WAS IT that created and replenished our globe, 
and impressed upon its inanimate furniture the laws 
you are SO fond of tracing and recording? Whose 
pencil embellished the lily of the field, and painted 



What think ye of Christ? 59 

the iris upon the insect's wing, and tinted with such 
wondrous beauty the shell which tempestuous waves 
have wafted you from the unfathomed caves of the 
ocean? Whose hand hung Arcturus and Orion, 
Canopus and Sirius, in their orbits, and wheels them 
onward in their viewless air-paths from one majestic 
cycle to another, " without variableness or shadow 
of turning"? Whose mechanism is this human frame, 
" so fearfully and wonderfully made" ? Whose agency 
has from the beginning shaped the destinies of na- 
tions and empires? Who is the source of all law 
and of all government, the true Power Plenipoten- 
tiary, to whom all creatures in ail worlds owe alle- 
giance; whose smile would make a heaven of hell, 
whose frown would make a hell of heaven ? It is 
He who is this day preached unto you ; He whose 
name falls upon your ears with an unwelcome and 
repulsive sound when I ask you, " What think ye 
of Christ?" " For by Him were all things created 
that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and 
invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or 
principalities, or powers : all things were created by 
Him and for Him." And it is for you who chal- 
lenge to yourselves the dignity and the candor of 
cultivated and philosophic men to say, whether this 
flagrant disparagement of the Creator is in keeping 
with your devotion to His creatures. Is it philo- 
sophical, is it rational, is it less than an indignity to 



6o / / liat think ye of Chris/ ? 

^\c\\cc itself, to lavish such attentions upon the works 
of nature and withhold the homage of your hearts 

from nature's God? Are human laws everything 
to you, and the Divine law nothing? Are earthly 
governments worthy of your profoundest study, and 
is there nothing to invite your researches in that 
august government which has Jehovah for its Head, 
the universe for its domain, and eternity for its dura- 
tion ? 

But there is a still more serious aspect to this in- 
quiry. If you can waive the question of a Creator, 
you will certainly concede the infinite importance of 
the question of a Saviour. " What think ye of 
Christ?" Is He the Son of God incarnate? Has 
He made an atonement for sin? Has He opened 
heaven to the guilty and the lost? Does He offer 
to save ?ts ? May we come to Him for salvation 
now and just as we are? Is His name the only 
name by which we can be saved ? If we reject Him 
must we go down to a deeper hell than if He had 
never died ? And may any offer of pardon to which 
we listen be the last we shall ever receive? These 
questions, at least, are important, — as important to 
you as they can be to the most illiterate and servile 
of the race; so important, indeed, and so urgent, 
that no language can set forth their deep solemnity. 
Will you ponder them ? Will you turn your thoughts 
to Christ? Will you invoke the Spirit of God to 



What think ye of Christ ? 61 

guide your inquiries, to take of the things of Christ 
and show them unto you, to lead you to His cross 
and cleanse you with His blood? This do, and 
when you stand before His bar you will be able to 
hear without dismay, nay, you will even hear with 
ecstasy, that question of questions, " What think 
ye of Christ? 



THE MYSTERY OF PROVIDENCE. 



Job xxvi. 14. 



"Lo, these are parts of His ways." 

This language occurs in one of the many very- 
eloquent passages of this remarkable book. The 
patriarch, extolling the majesty and might of Jeho- 
vah, adduces various exhibitions of His power in the 
natural world. " He stretcheth out the North over 
the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon noth- 
ing. He bindeth up the waters in His thick clouds; 
and the cloud is not rent under them. He holdeth 
back the face of His throne, and spreadeth His cloud 
upon it. He hath compassed the waters with bounds, 
until the day and night come to an end. The pillars 
of heaven tremble and are astonished at His reproof. 
He divideth the sea with His power, and by His un- 
derstanding lie smiteth through the proud. By His 
Spirit 1 Ic hath garnished the heavens ; His hand hath 
formed the crooked serpent.* Lo, these are parts of 

*The constellation called the "Serpent" or "Dragon," 
62 



The Mystery of Providence. 63 

His ways; but how little a portion is heard of Him ? 
but the thunder of His power who can understand?'' 

The meaning of the last verse appears to be this : 
" These manifestations of the Deity, grand and im- 
posing as they are, present but a very inadequate 
display of His character and works. They are, as it 
were, but a breathing of His power. Should He re- 
veal it in all its grandeur, what we now see would 
be but as a whisper to the crashing thunder; and 
who could comprehend or bear to look upon it?" 

It is the feeling of every devout philosopher en- 
gaged in the researches of natural science, " These 
are parts of His ways." He well knows that what 
he sees of the works of the Creator can bear no com- 
parison with what he does not see. When he meets 
with difficulties, therefore, which baffle his sagacity, 
he modestly refers them to his own ignorance, satis- 
fied that there must be principles or facts as yet un- 
discovered which will explain them. It is the sciolist 
who draws sweeping conclusions from scant prem- 
ises. And since the world just now abounds with 
sciolists, it should excite neither surprise nor appre- 
hension that such constant efforts are made to array 
science against Christianity. It seems to belong to 
the childhood of every new science to assume a 
threatening air towards the Bible. But it never lasts 
beyond its period of leading-strings. Astronomy 
set the example ; but it soon got ashamed of its 



64 The Mystery of Providence. 

temerity, and has made what amends it could, by 
lending its aid to exalt the God of the Bible. Geol- 
ogy came next, and picked up the broken lance 
Astronomy had thrown away. But its eyes have 
been opened, and it finds most of its objections an- 
nulled by a more careful collation of its own facts 
and a true interpretation of the first chapter of Gen- 
esis. Another juvenile champion has since taken 
the field and proclaimed, with sound of trumpet, that 
the Bible is mistaken in asserting that " God hath 
made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on 
the face of the whole earth. " Up to this period, 
however, its chief expositors have neither settled 
their definitions, nor come to any satisfactory agree- 
ment as to the facts with which they have to deal. 
It is safe to predict that Ethnology, like its sister- 
sciences, will exchange a youth of skepticism for a 
manhood of vigorous and trustful faith. It will dis- 
cover, as they have, that its early conclusions were 
premature and unauthorized, founded upon a very 
partial induction, and animated by an arrogance 
equally offensive to sound philosophy and to gen- 
uine piety. 

It will do much to save science from repeating 
these mistakes indefinitely to keep in mind that, in 
its profoundest researches into the arcana of nature, 
it sees but "parts of His ways'* who made and 
governs all. 



The Mystery of Providence. 65 

And what is here affirmed of creation is no less 
true of His Providence. In this view the text affirms 
a proposition which well deserves our serious con- 
sideration. The scientific students of nature are 
comparatively few in number. Providence comes 
home to us all. It has to do with every one's 
affairs at every moment of life. Not to feel inter- 
ested in ascertaining the principles upon which it 
is administered would argue a discreditable insensi- 
bility to our highest welfare. To overlook the facts 
which have their proper expression in the statement, 
" These are parts of His ways," is impossible. They 
crowd upon us in every direction. There is not a 
page of history, sacred or profane, to which they do 
not lend a coloring. They give every thoughtful 
man food for anxious reflection. 

For who does not feel that this whole dispensa- 
tion under which we live is a mystery ? We come 
into being the heirs of a depraved nature. The 
world, of which we are made the unconscious ten- 
ants, discloses itself to our opening faculties as a 
scene replete with temptation and filled with suffer- 
ing. We see that the frown of God is upon it. Sin, 
sorrow, and death range over every part of it. More 
than half its population are idolaters. Three-fourths 
of the remainder are toiling to support the other 
fourth. Man is doomed to a life of labor. The re- 
luctant earth refuses to sustain him except at the 

6* 



66 The Mystery of Providence. 



cost o( incessant and exhausting service. Ever and 
anon war breaks forth, and desolates cities and em- 
pires. Pestilence and famine sweep off their millions. 
The bad are exalted. The righteous are oppressed. 
Good men are cut off in the midst of their useful- 
ness, and the idle, the miserly, and the vicious are 
spared. The Gospel of Christ, God's own cure for 
the world's maladies, makes its way slowly and 
feebly through the earth. When we look at a group 
of Missionaries pursuing their tedious work in China 
or Hindostan, we are ready to ask, " Why was not 
the baptism of Pentecost made transmissive and per- 
petual in the Church, that so the miracle of three 
thousand conversions in a day might have been re- 
peated till all were saved?" And if these distant 
scenes affect us, much more are we impressed by 
what passes around and within us. Nowhere can 
virtue maintain itself without a struggle. We are 
conscious of a propensity to forsake God. Our 
purest affections become snares to us. Multitudes 
are overborne by the great current of evil, and swept 
away to appear no more. No one advances a step 
heavenward without having to contest every inch of 
the way. Travelling the narrow path is like stem- 
ming the current of a rapid river: if you stop your 
oars even for an instant you begin to drift with the 
tide. The very holiest men form no exception. In- 
dwelling sin is their scourge and burden to the end. 



The Mystery of Providence. 67 

It was an eminent apostle who exclaimed, " When I 
would do good evil is present with me, so that the 
good which I would I do not, and the evil which I 
would not that I do." And every one who tries it 
finds that it is by no mere figure of speech that the 
Christian life is styled a warfare and a crucifixion. 

The mystery which enfolds this whole condition 
of things deepens when we consider the character 
of the Supreme Being. It seems, at first view, to 
be incompatible with His moral perfections. The 
Scriptures ascribe to Him infinite wisdom, boundless 
goodness, and immaculate holiness, as well as om- 
nipotence. How can it consort with these attri- 
butes that a state of things like that just described 
should be tolerated ? His omnipotence precludes 
the supposition that He has not power to rectify it. 
And reasoning from what we know of the other 
qualities as they exist among men, the presumption 
would be, that they must all unite in demanding an 
entire change. But this state of apparent disorder 
and turmoil continues. Good and evil are strangely 
intermixed. Sin and sorrow reign. And virtue 
makes its way to heaven through the fires. 

We are all pressed with these difficulties. It is a 
tangled web which we cannot unravel. Sometimes, 
in meditating upon it, our faith almost gives way. 
Though we may not murmur, we are tempted to re- 
pine that our condition here should be so unlike 



6S The Mystery of Providence. 

what we feel it might have been. And we detect 
ourselves secretly asking, " Why has God made me 
thus? Why lias He appointed to me this or that 
allotment ? Why must I encounter this temptation ? 
Why drink of this cup of sorrow?" These are the 
moanings of our inner nature. They come up like 
mournful echoes from the deep caverns of the sea. 
And though no other ear may hear them, we hear 
them, and they make us sad. 

If there be any method of removing or mitigating 
these trials, we ought to know it. To resolve the 
enigma of our present state, and clear up every 
shadow that rests upon it, is of course impossible. 
But it should be an acceptable service, if we can 
throw upon the scene a single ray of light which 
may, by God's blessing, help to reconcile us for the 
time to what we cannot fully comprehend. Such a 
clew, if I mistake not, is furnished us by our text, — 
at least, in that aspect in which we are taking the 
words, by way of accommodation to our subject. 
It is a thoroughly scriptural sentiment, everywhere 
expressed or implied throughout the Bible: " Lo, 
these are parts of His ways." And we may be al- 
lowed to use this language as equivalent to that 
declaration of the apostle, "We know in part,." To 
take this world by itself, dissevered from its relations 
to the great scheme of Providence, and from its own 
past and future, is to consign ourselves to atheism 



The Mystery of Providence. 69 

and despair. To contemplate it as only a part, an 
infinitesimal part, of a " stupendous whole," will re- 
lieve even its darkest features, and assist us in believ- 
ing that, although " clouds and darkness are round 
about Him, righteousness and judgment are the 
habitation of His throne." 

" These are parts of His ways." There is a prime 
truth presented in these last two words. We are not 
to escape from the perplexities of our position by 
denying that the Divine government extends to this 
moral chaos around us. All that we read of our 
past history, all that we see and feel, the events 
which most confound, and the facts which most ap- 
pall us, are " parts of His ways." Whatever is, is by 
His direction or permission. It might serve a pres- 
ent purpose to ascribe some of the calamities of our 
condition, or certain of the prominent evils which so 
inscrutably mix themselves up in our lot, to chance. 
But no evil could be so fearful, no calamity so over- 
whelming, as that of owing allegiance to a God who 
could allow anything to happen in any part of the 
universe except with His own consent or by His own 
command. The very suggestion would impeach the 
perfection and sovereignty of Jehovah, and degrade 
Him to a level with " the gods of the heathen, which 
are no gods." Were it possible for some apparently 
trivial incident to occur in the life of a child which 
was not comprised in the Divine purpose, it might 



The Mystery of Providence. 



ultimately disturb the entire course of His adminis- 
tration, precisely as an unexpected perturbation in 
the motion of one of the minor planetary orbs might 
affect the equipoise and harmony of the whole stellar 
system. 

Not only are all these inequalities of our condi- 
tion — the disappointments and hardships, the suffer- 
ing" and misery — of life " parts of His ways," but they 
proceed according to a purpose ; they belong to a 
plan which embraces as well the minutest as the 
most august events ; as well the fall of a tear as the 
fall of an empire. The state of things in our world 
was alluded to a moment since as a "moral chaos.'' 
But it is a " chaos" only to our limited and imperfect 
vision. " The events of Providence appear to us very 
much like the letters thrown into a post-bag. When 
we look into that repository, it may seem as if its 
contents were in inextricable confusion. But then 
every letter has its special address inscribed upon it; 
it has the name and residence of the party, and so it 
shall in due time fall into his hands, and bring its 
proper intelligence. And this intelligence it con- 
to the persons intended, regardless of the emo- 
tions that are excited. It is a kind of picture of the 
movements of Providence. What a crowd of events 
huddled together, and apparently confused, does it 
carry along with it! Very diverse are the objects 
bound up in that bundle, and very varied are the' 



The Mystery of Providence. 7 1 

emotions which they are to excite when opened, 
and yet how coolly and systematically does the 
vehicle proceed on its way ! Neither the joy nor the 
sorrow which it produces causes it to linger an in- 
stant in its course. But meanwhile, every occur- 
rence, or bundle of occurrences, is let out at its proper 
place. Each has a name inscribed upon it, and a 
place to which it is addressed. Each, too, has a 
message to carry and a purpose to fulfil. Some of 
these inspire hope or joy, and others raise fear and 
sorrow. The events which are unfolded by the same 
course of things, and which fall out the same day, 
bring gladness to one, and land another in deepest 
distress. On the occurrence of the same event you 
perceive one weeping and another rejoicing. Some 
of the dispensations are observed to propagate pros- 
perity through a whole community. And these 
others, so black and dismal, and of which so many 
arrive at the same time, carry, as they are scattered, 
gloom into the abodes of thousands. But amid all 
this seeming confusion every separate event has its 
separate destination. It has a commission, and it 
will execute it ; but it cannot go beyond its com- 
mission."* 

It is something to be assured of this : to know that 
while our world has broken away from its allegiance 

* McCosh: Div. Gov., p. 206. 



72 The Mystery of Providence. 



to God, His pervading and controlling agency is as 
really concerned in everything which occurs here 
as it is in directing the affairs of those orbs whose 
atmosphere no breath of sin has ever tainted. But 
we must not pause here. 

If it be so, that these events are "parts of His 
ways," both reason and religion forbid us to judge 
of them as though they were the whole of His ways. 
On all other subjects, in all other relations, we recog- 
nize the validity of the principle upon which this 
observation rests. No man is willing to have his 
work judged until it is completed. You cannot 
gauge the wisdom of the husbandman from his 
ploughing and seeding; nor the taste of the archi- 
tect from his foundations. The advocate bids you 
wait till his entire case is unfolded; and the physi- 
cian, till you have seen the effects of his treatment. 
The statesman insists that you shall test his policy 
by its fruits; and the warrior protests against an 
arraignment of his plans before the campaign is 
finished. We are bound to apply the same prin- 
ciple in judging of the ways of God to man. 
It may very well be that there are features in His 
providential government which we cannot now ex- 
plain ; mysteries which foil our penetration, and leave 
the wisest of the race, equally with the simplest, at 
a loss as to the true solution of them. Knowing, as 
we do, that these are but "parts of His ways," and 



The Mystery of Providence. 73 



conscious that "here we see through a glass darkly," 
we have no right to assume that every arrangement 
will not be satisfactorily vindicated hereafter. The 
presumption is the other way : that the phenomena 
which yield us this perennial harvest of doubts and 
misgivings will be cleared up; that the manifold evils 
of the present economy will be redressed, and all its 
inequalities adjusted on principles which shall com- 
mand the assent of the intelligent universe. No one 
can read the Scriptures without observing how con- 
stantly they appeal from the present to the future, 
from the sufferings incident to this life, to the re- 
wards of the next. For example, one of the anoma- 
lies which embarrass our faith is, that God should 
allow T the wicked to persecute the righteous. But 
the Bible does not treat this as a marvel. It even 
turns the curse into a blessing. " Blessed are they 
which are persecuted for righteousness' sake : for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven." " Beloved, think 
it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to 
try you, as though some strange thing happened 
unto you : but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers 
of Christ's sufferings ; that, when His glory shall be 
revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." 
What will the righteous think of their wrongs and 
trials here when they inherit the kingdom of heaven 
and share in the glory of the Saviour? This is a 
familiar illustration of the prevalent tone of the 

7 



'4 The Mystery of Providence. 



sacred writers in treating of this subject. There is 
always a reference, expressed or implied, to a com- 
ing judgment and a final dispensation. This whole 
scheme of things, though impressed with infinite 
importance to us in its relations to what is invisible 
and future, is practically regarded as a preliminary 
and transient institution, — a mere scaffolding, which 
is to be taken down when its purposes are accom- 
plished. Is a building to be judged by the scaffold 
used in erecting it? 

But we proceed a step further. While the exist- 
ing state of things comprises " parts" only " of God's 
ways," we can so far understand it as to perceive 
that it is what it is because we are what zve are. It 
is the character of man which has determined the 
character of the dispensation under which he lives. 
The facts and arrangements about which we are 
arguing could have no place in a sphere consecrated 
to holiness, nor in one resigned to unrestrained de- 
pravity. They define a state of rebellion and an- 
archy ; but anarchy and rebellion held in check, — 
a state of moral ruin, but ruin not yet irretrievable. 

We may not attempt to penetrate the Divine 
counsels and inquire why this order of things was 
established in preference to some other. But since 
it is established, we cannot fail to see that it ex- 
presses in a most emphatic manner God's hatred of 
sin. Not to go into any elucidation of this point 



The Mystery of Providence. 75 

beyond the exigencies of the present argument, 
there are two things which illustrate it, too con- 
spicuous in the phenomena with which we are 
dealing to be overlooked. One is the intimate 
connection between sin and suffering. Not only 
may all the suffering in the world be traced back to 
the one transgression of the first man; but, in the 
settled course of events, moral evil produces natural 
evil; the violation of the Divine law produces un- 
happiness, pain, and death. In every graveyard we 
may read what God thinks of sin. The other fact 
is, that the righteous experience such difficulties in 
the culture and practice of piety. These difficulties 
are from within and from without. They might 
have been exonerated from them. They might have 
been made perfectly holy in their regeneration, and 
the arm of Omnipotence might have kept both 
wicked men and devils from either assailing or 
tempting them. The Christian life, in that case, 
would have been no "warfare;" and our eyes would 
not have been pained, as they are now, by seeing the 
grievous wrongs so often inflicted upon the people 
of God because they are His people. Had it seemed 
good to Him, indeed, God might have exempted 
them from the various trials which they now share 
with the unbelieving world. But He has done none 
of these things. As if to mark His sense of the evil 
of sin in a manner not to be misunderstood, He 



The Mystery of Providence. 



Leaves His own children to taste its bitterness, even 
after they are freed from its penalty. Earth must 
still be to them a vale of tears. They must endure 
the common lot of change and disappointment, of 
sickness and decay. Like all others, they must en- 
counter ingratitude and unkindness, calumny and in- 
justice. They must see their fondest hopes blighted. 
They must follow their loved ones to the tomb. 
Nay, they must learn by painful experience that 
heaven is to be attained only as the result of an in- 
cessant conflict with their own vagrant passions and 
the enticements of a corrupt world. 

Do we mistake in this interpretation? Is not this 
very condition of things, which wears such an aspect 
of mystery to our eyes, eminently adapted to exhibit 
God's displeasure against sin? And while nothing 
can illustrate this like the cross, is it not an affecting 
confirmation of it that He should require even His 
redeemed ones, who wear His image, and bear His 
name, and would willingly die to honor Him, to 
make their way into the kingdom of heaven 
"through much tribulation"? If these "parts of 
His ways" upon which we are dilating seem to be 
shrouded in mystery, let it be considered whether 
any other course of events could exhibit so forcibly 
His estimate of moral evil. And of what ineffable 
importance He deems it, that due expression should 
be given to this sentiment, may be seen alike in 



The Mystery of Providence. yy 

man's ruin and his recovery ; in the awful conse- 
quences which were linked with the first offence, and 
in the priceless blood which was shed to atone for 
sin. The lesson written so vividly upon the prime- 
val garden, and upon the cross, may be traced no 
less in all the confusion and misery, the sicknesses 
and sorrows, the sufferings and wrongs, which spread 
their deadly savor over the whole habitable globe. 

Again, it must be apparent to a candid observer 
that the existing state of things, while it displays 
God's estimate of sin, is adapted to supply the very 
training which we need. 

It was just now remarked that things are as they 
are because we are what we are. The great contest 
of which our globe is the theatre is, whether God or 
man shall reign. The pride which, in the unrenewed 
heart, boldly defies the power of its Maker, still 
cleaves to the believer. He is too much disposed to 
lean upon his own strength, and to walk by the light 
of his own wisdom. The radical principle of the 
new nature is faith. The end which the Gospel con- 
templates is that of making man cease from himself 
and from all creatures, and trust in Jehovah alone. 
It requires him to do what the angels do, — find his 
happiness in God, and confide in Him, whether he 
can understand His dispensations or not. In this 
view, the mysteries of the present economy meet an 
urgent want of our nature. The lesson they incul- 

7* 



;S The Mystery of Providence. 



cate is that lesson of humility and faith which we are 
SO slow to receive. They demand of us an implicit 
confidence in the wisdom and benevolence of God, 
in the presence of arrangements which, to the mere 
eye of sense, look as though the world had escaped 
from His control. They bid us accept as just and 
needful, allotments which have their ground and 
reason hidden from our view. They impose silence 
where unbelief would make us murmur, and submis- 
sion where pride would stir us up to rebellion. To our 
unchastened speculations they oppose a barrier which 
has its height and depth in the infinite, and which 
is inscribed all over with the imperial edict, ''Thus 
far shalt thou come, and no further/' When we ask, 
" How could a just and good Being permit sin to in- 
vade the world? Why did He not arrest the conse- 
quences of their disobedience with the first pair? 
Why are the righteous oppressed and the wicked 
exalted?" we receive a two-fold answer. The first 
response is, " Be still, and know that I am God." 
The second is, " Lo, these are parts of His ways." 
The first addresses itself to our faith ; the second to 
our reason. Both arc suited to our moral training. 

But there is a discipline here, no less needful, which 
touches us more keenly: it is the discipline of temp- 
tation. Virtue is like the Alpine fir, which thrives 
amidst the storms. Not only in the inspired word, 
l)i it upon every feature of this scene of conflict and 



The Mystery of Providence. 79 

trouble, is it written, " This is the will of God, even 
your sanctification." The believer finds himself set 
upon by fierce adversaries, clothed it may be as angels 
of light; and his own half-subdued passions, un- 
leashed, raise a turmoil in his breast. But it does 
not happen without a purpose. " Blessed is the man 
that endureth temptation ; for when he is tried, he 
shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath 
promised to them that love Him." God is training 
His people here for a glorious immortality. The 
salvation already begun in their hearts, and to be 
consummated hereafter, is a salvation from sin. The 
more they learn of the evil of sin, the more will they 
appreciate their deliverance from it, and the better will 
they be fitted for a sinless world. But there is no 
teacher like experience. And they are left, therefore, 
to drink for awhile of these bitter waters, that they 
may drink with a higher zest of the water of the river 
of life. 

It would be easy to pursue this train of thought, 
and point out numerous ways in which the present 
state of things is precisely adapted to that spiritual 
discipline of which we stand in need. But I must 
not exhaust your patience. 

We have taken a cursory survey of the anomalies 
and discordancies which mark the established order 
of things in the world. In reference to the doubts 
and difficulties of which these are so prolific, it has 



So Tlie Mystery of Providence. 



been shown that all these inequalities are really parts 
of God's ways ; that they pertain to a fixed plan 
which He is earning forward, and to which they are, 
every one of them, essential ; that being only " parts" 
of His ways, no inferences should be drawn from 
them as if they were the whole of His ways, — the 
reasonable presumption being that everything will 
be explained hereafter; that, notwithstanding the 
veil of mystery which enwraps this dispensation, it 
is quite apparent that it owes its peculiarities to our 
moral character ; and that, as among the ends to be 
accomplished by it, God designs, by these inscrutable 
arrangements, to manifest His own estimate of the 
enormity of sin, and also to provide for us a course 
of moral discipline which shall gradually fit us for 
heaven. 

Considerations like these may, possibly, do some- 
thing to relieve the obscurity which rests upon our 
condition, and even to make us patient and cheerful 
in treading the chequered path which leads from a 
fallen to an unfallen world. Assuredly if it was re- 
quired of the Son of God that He should wear a 
crown of thorns before wearing a crown of glory, it 
is not for us to complain that the road which con- 
ducts us to our crown has its thorns also : especially 
when we must add, with the penitent malefactor, — 
"And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward 
of our deeds ; but this Man hath done nothing amiss." 



The Mystery of Providence. 



Besides, our trials come in mercy. " Whom the 
Lord loveth, He chasteneth." The painful mysteries 
of our lot, our losses, our changes, our conflicts, — 
what are they but the assayer's fire, to consume the 
dross and refine the gold ? He afflicts, not willingly, 
but because He is a Father; and, as a Father, whom 
He chastens, He will gloriously reward. 

" For God has marked each sorrowing day, 
And number d every secret tear; 
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay 
For all His children suffer here." 

A single thought more and I have done. There 
are mysteries here. Life, I repeat, is a riddle which 
no wit of man can solve. It must needs be so where 
we see but " parts of His ways." But all is not 
dark. There are some things so plain that a child 
can see and understand them. And, happily for us, 
these are the matters which most deeply concern us. 
Whatever else may be dark, there is one path trav- 
ersing the earth which shines with an unquenchable 
brightness. The sun which illumines it never sets; 
and they who do not see it must shut their eyes. It 
is the " narrow way" to the celestial city. And the 
great lesson of our subject for us all, and especially 
for the unconverted, is, not to allow the study of what 
is obscure in our lot to make us unmindful of what 
is plain. What surpassing folly is it for men to waste 



82 The Mystery of Providence. 



their lives in cavilling at the Divine dispensations, or 
in fruitless efforts to unravel the web of Providence, 
while their salvation is uncared for! These mysteries 
may be studied hereafter. It will no doubt be one 
of the employments and privileges of the ransomed, 
to see this whole probationary system relieved of the 
difficulties which are now, to our feeble minds, so 
intractable, and every enigma of the present econ- 
omy, even the most intricate, satisfactorily cleared 
up. But while those questions may be postponed, 
the other cannot be. The salvation or perdition of 
the soul is a question of time, not of eternity. And 
yet eternity hangs upon it ! Cease, then, from use- 
less, if I must not say irreverent, complaints against 
the appointments of Him whose " way is in the sea." 
Leave the things so hard to be understood, where He 
has left them. Enough to know that we are lost in 
the first Adam, and may be saved in the second : 
that where sin abounded, grace doth much more 
abound : and that Christ Jesus came into the world 
to save sinners, even the chief. Come in penitence 
and faith to Him, and He will not cast you out. 



THE CHURCH: UNITY IN DIVERSITY; 
DIVERSITY IN UNITY. 



I. Corinthians xii. 12. 



"For as the body is one, and hath many members, 
and all the members of that one body, being many, 
are one body : so also is Christ!' 

The apostle's discourse is of spiritual gifts. These 
were largely distributed among the Christians of 
Corinth, — too largely, it would seem, for the grace 
that went along with them. For they all desired 
certain gifts in preference to others ; coveting those 
of a conspicuous or imposing character, and dispar- 
aging such as came in a more modest guise. It is 
humiliating to think that a church founded by apos- 
tolic hands should, even in its infancy, become in- 
volved in a controversy of this sort. It only shows 
that the human nature which the apostles had to 
deal with, was the same nature that so constantly 
tried the Divine patience under the ancient Economy, 
and which works for evil in our own hearts and in 
all around us. This root of bitterness wrought great 

83 



84 The Church: I T nity in Diversity* 

mischief there. St. Paul feels himself obliged to 
treat of it in a very grave and formal way. His 
argument is this. There are diversities of gifts, — as 
the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, the 
gifts of healing, miracles, prophecy, discovering of 
spirits, tongues, the interpretation of tongues, and 
the like. But these all proceed from the same sov- 
ereign and gracious Spirit. He confers them, and 
they are conferred for a common end ; not for the 
honor of the several recipients, but for the edification 
of believers and the welfare of the whole Church. 
The variety they embrace is essential to the work 
to be done, — essential to the completeness of the 
Church, — precisely as various members are neces- 
sary to constitute the body. This comparison he 
carries out into details, showing how absurd it 
would be for the foot to complain that it is not the 
hand, or the ear that it is not the eye ; and applying 
this principle to the organization of the Church : 
" For as the body is one, and hath many members, 
and all the members of that one body, being many, 
are one body : so also is Christ (i.e., the Church, the 
body of Christ). For by one Spirit arc we all bap- 
tized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, 
whether we be bond or free; and have been all 
made to drink into one Spirit." 

The diversity iti unity here affirmed by the apostle 
of the gifts communicated to the early Church, per- 



The Church : Diversity in Unity. 85 

tains to the Church in its entire structure. It is, in 
fact, the law of its composition, — an identity of char- 
acter and experience, combined with an endless diver- 
sity in the details. Analogy would predispose us to 
expect this, for the same principle pervades the king- 
dom of nature. Everywhere, in looking abroad, we 
behold variety. One star differs from another star in 
glory. Each zone not only, but each country, has 
its own Flora. A single forest may contain twenty 
different species of trees, and a single garden a hun- 
dred species of shrubs and flowers. No two trees 
even of the same species are alike. No two flowers 
are so identical in shape, color, and structure that a 
powerful magnifier would not reveal some points of 
difference. The woods have their distinctive quali- 
ties of hardness, hue, weight, strength, and elasticity. 
The grasses with which nature has carpeted the 
earth differ as much as the artificial fabrics with 
which we cover our floors. So, also, in the animal 
world, every beast and bird, every reptile, and fish, 
and insect, has, with its proper nature, attributes 
which distinguish it from the rest of its own tribe. 
Yet with all this diversity, there is a principle of 
unity running through the several departments of 
nature, which not only separates each department 
from the others, but combines the individuals of each 
genus, and again of each species, into a uniform and 
consistent whole. We need not pursue this topic. 



86 The Church: Unity in Diversity. 

It will be enough to have hinted at the fundamental 
law which underlies the Creator's work throughout 
the world of nature, as preparing the mind for the 
prevalence of the same law in the kingdom of grace. 

The most palpable exemplification of this law is 
that which is offered by the diverse outivard forms in 
which the Church exists. 

This is not suggested as the idea, or as any part 
of the idea, set forth in the text and context. It is 
not the visible Church which the apostle affirms to be 
one; but the true Church, — the Church made up of 
the regenerated and saved, who are confined to no 
one communion, and are known to God alone. But 
it is not without its significance that He has per- 
mitted the visible Church to be cast in many separate 
moulds. He might have prescribed a polity with 
such distinctness, and enjoined it in such terms of 
authority, that all churches would have conformed 
to it. But He saw fit so to frame His instructions 
on this subject as to leave room for a diversity of 
interpretation. We do not doubt that our own gov- 
ernment and worship are in harmony with the forms 
which prevailed in the apostolic age. Our brethren 
who differ from us, on the one hand in the direction 
of Independency, and on the other in the direction 
of Prelacy, have a similar conviction in respect to 
their forms. May we not reasonably infer that it 
was the will of God to allow a certain variety in the 



The Church : Diversity in Unity. 8 7 

outward things of religion, as being suited to that 
variety of taste and disposition with which He has 
endowed men ? The fact is indisputable, that to one 
class of minds this form of worship is the more edi- 
fying; to another, that. And while we cannot be- 
lieve that all forms are equally scriptural, it will lay 
no great strain upon our charity to concede that 
God may have His own children in each of these 
communions so widely separated by their denomina- 
tional lines. In this view we may refer to the visi- 
ble Church as illustrating the principle of diversity 
in unity. 

The principle, however, finds its legitimate sphere 
within the brotherhood of real believers. This 
phrase, in fact, defines the sense in which they are 
affirmed to be one; they are "real believers :" this 
makes them one. So the apostle teaches in the 
passage before us: The body of Christ (the Church) 
is one: "for (v. 13) by one Spirit are we all baptized 
into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, 
whether we be bond or free." It is through the 
anointing of the Spirit men are born again, and so 
engrafted into Christ as to become members of His 
body. This is the communicating of a new nature 
which makes them one, as really as the natural 
birth, the possession of a common humanity, makes 
them one. External diversities are of no conse- 
quence in either case. The child of the hovel, the 



8S The Church: Unity in Diversity. 

wigwam, the palace, it matters not where or when 
he is born, he inherits the common nature and 
belongs to the race. So with the new birth. It 
merges all outward distinctions. " Whether we be 
Jews or Gentiles:" which is equivalent to saying, 
"Whether we have been worshippers of the true 
God or benighted idolaters :" here are the two 
extremes of the religious scale. " Whether we be 
bond or free," masters or servants: here, especially 
under the rigors of Roman bondage, are the two 
social extremes. He means, then, that in the pres- 
ence of the cross, no earthly distinctions are recog- 
nized : that the baptism of the Spirit so far levels 
separating barriers of every kind, as to combine all 
who receive it in a sacred and indissoluble unity. 

This unity includes a common Head. " Christ is 
the Head of the Church." Union with Christ is in- 
dispensable. Being " in Christ" is the familiar New 
Testament phrase for designating a true Christian. 

It denotes, further, a oneness of faith. Diversities 
of belief there certainly are among real believers. 
Aside from minor and local peculiarities, two great 
systems divide the Christian world. But Calvinism 
and Arminianism are not as light and darkness to 
each other. The points where they coalesce are 
numerous and important. As philosophies, they 
are thoroughly discordant. But they meet and bow 
together in lowly reverence before the cross. They 



The Church : Diversify in Unify. 89 



alike recognize the work of the Divine Spirit. They 
ascribe salvation to the mercy and grace of God. 
All Christians concur in the necessity of " repentance 
toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, ,, in 
disclaiming all merit of their own, and in acknowl- 
edging the authority of the moral law as a rule of 
life. We claim for them, therefore, that they are of 
" one faith." 

They are also of one purpose. The various mem- 
bers of the body, controlled by a single will, work 
together for the same ends. The members of 
Christ's mystical body have a common aim. They 
regard the care of the soul as the one thing needful. 
They make it their concern to follow Christ; to 
obey His precepts; to seek His honor and glory; to 
aid in building up His kingdom. That the service 
they render Him is precarious and inconstant, and 
that their best duties are defiled with sin, must be 
freely admitted. But we may, nevertheless, insist 
that they are one in purpose and endeavor; one in 
striving to live unto Him who loved them. 

They are united, too, by the bonds of a mutual 
sympathy. In the human body, if one member suf- 
fers, all suffer; if one rejoices, all rejoice. We con- 
cede the comparative feebleness of this principle in 
the Church of our day : it is not what it should be. 
But it exists. The solicitude of every real Christian 
(and of such alone are we speaking) is for the cause 



90 The Church: Unity in Diversity. 



of Christ. He rejoices in every triumph of the Gos- 
pel, lie mourns over every disaster to the cause of 
true religion. He recognizes those who love his 
Master as brethren. He hails them as co-workers. 
He delights in their well-being. He would gladly 
alleviate their sorrows. The tie which unites him 
to them is stronger than any earthly bond. We may 
justly affirm, then, that they are one in sympathy. 

Not to specify other points of identity, the unity 
of Christians comprehends, with a common Head, a 
oneness of faith, of purpose, and of sympathy. 

But this unity is not monotony. The Church is 
one. But it is one as the body is one; as the animal 
kingdom is one; the vegetable; the mineral; the 
whole realm of nature. The formula of definition 
in all these cases is, Unity in diversity, and diver- 
sity IX UNITY. 

The Christian Church began in this way, and 
began gloriously. The Day of Pentecost supplied 
the mould in which it was to be cast. " Parthians 
and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Meso- 
potamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, 
and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in 
the parts of Libya about Cyrcne, and strangers of 
Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians." 
What an assemblage was this! A Congress of all 
nations, convened as it were on purpose to supply a 
perfect type of that universal Church which was now 



The Church : Diversity in Unity. 9 1 

to supersede the narrow courts of the Levitical tem- 
ple. Henceforth there could be no question as to 
the import of that Divine commission, " Go ye into 
all the world, and preach the Gospel to every crea- 
ture ;" no misgiving as to the races that were to find 
a place in the Church. And as it set out, so it has 
continued. Contemning all distinctions of climate, 
empire, language, and religion, the Church has gone 
on, gathering into its ample fold people of all lands 
and tongues and faiths ; cementing them into one 
harmonious whole ; and that, without disturbing the 
elements which mark their several nationalities. We 
can imagine a scene which would surpass even the 
Day of Pentecost in presenting this truth as a sub- 
lime and beneficent reality. For we can picture to 
ourselves a communion-season at one of the great 
centres of the world, which should bring together 
around the table of their common Lord, representa- 
tives of all the evangelical denominations of the 
globe ; where there should sit down together disci- 
ples of the various European and American Churches, 
with converts of all lands, Jews, Chinese, Hindoos, 
Burmese, Siamese, Turks, Greeks, Nestorians, Arme- 
nians, Africans of a score or two of tribes, Indians 
of our forests, Greenlanders, Esquimaux, Tahitians, 
Feejees, and the like. Nothing could exceed the 
disparities and contrasts which such an assemblage 
would present in form and feature and complexion, 



92 The Church: Unity in Diversity, 



in dress and manners, in language and culture. Yet 
would the sacred symbols convey to their minds 
the same meaning, and awaken kindred emotions in 
every breast. And were the service administered 
by one capable of speaking their different tongues, 
he might utter precisely the same sentiments in ad- 
dressing them, and all hearts would respond with the 
same feelings of penitence, trust, and grateful praise 
to God, and of mutual love to one another. The 
world may yet witness this august and beautiful 
demonstration of the multiform-unity of the Church: 
and if earth does not see it, heaven will. 

But we may see this diversity in unity without 
convening the Church Ecumenical. It is the law of 
the kingdom everywhere. In the apostolic age, the 
household of faith comprised persons of every rank 
and occupation. Not many mighty and noble were 
called, but some were: and the poor were there 
in abundance. The wayside beggars, the despised 
lepers, the fishermen of Tiberias, the " honorable 
women," and " Caesar's household," were all repre- 
sented. There were gifts and graces of every sort 
and degree. The knowledge we have of the apos- 
tolic college, though very imperfect as to the major 
part of them, warrants the conclusion that no two of 
these twelve men were alike; each one having his 
strongly-marked individual traits. And this variety 
has been perpetuated. The ministry has never been 



The Church : Diversity in Unity. 93 

without its Johns and Pauls, its Thomases and 
Peters, its sons of thunder and its sons of consola- 
tion. You have but to reflect for a moment, and 
you will be able to call up a whole gallery of por- 
traits from the annals of the modern Church as di- 
verse as were the original preachers. Let me name 
Baxter, Owen, Bunyan, Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Hall, 
the Wesleys, the Erskines, Romaine, President Ed- 
wards, Whitefield, Dwight, Robert Hall, Chalmers, 
Davies, Mason, the Alexanders. What a galaxy is 
this ! Every star is brilliant ; but no two shine with 
the same lustre ; the same indeed in one sense, for 
the light they reflect is from the same Sun : — herein 
is the unity. But it varies in hue and measure and 
velocity: herein is the diversity. 

And as with the ministry so with the people. To 
delineate the variety which pertains to the many 
members of the one spiritual body would be to de- 
scribe the numerous sorts of people aggregated in a 
community. For the Church recruits itself indiffer- 
ently from the vast outlying masses of humanity. 
It appropriates to itself all ages, sexes, and condi- 
tions. Its merciful conscription lays hold upon the 
rich and the poor, the humble and the proud, the 
sedate and the ardent, the resolute and the gentle, 
the learned and the illiterate, the dissolute and the 
moral. Baptizing them into Christ, it makes them 
all one body; and yet without destroying or even 



94 The Church : I T nity in Diversity. 



impairing their individuality. Of course the training 
to which it subjects them demands the lopping off 
of excrescences and the healing of disorders which, 
neglected, would consume the life. But within the 
wise and wide limitations prescribed by the Divine 
I [usbandman, it allows all the trees and shrubs trans- 
planted into its enclosure to follow out each the law 
of its own growth. The pine is not expected to be- 
come an oak ; nor the orange a vine; nor the violet 
a rose. All the requisition is that the pine shall be 
a thrifty pine and the oak a thrifty oak; and that the 
orange and the vine, the violet and the rose, and every 
other tree, and herb, and flower, shall grow up towards 
perfection, and thus fulfil the end of its own being. 

This rule is observed even in respect to the methods 
by which the dead branches are engrafted into the 
True Vine and made alive. It is the prerogative of 
the one Almighty Spirit to effect this; here is the 
unity. But He does it in a great variety of modes; 
here is the diversity. To be born of the Spirit is in- 
dispensable. To be renewed in precisely this or that 
way is not essential. Conversion varies indefinitely 
in its times, means, antecedents, and consequents. 
God is a Sovereign here, as in all His other works. 
And He displays the same diversity of operations 
here as throughout the wide range of creative nature. 
As if to rebuke the attempt — which has, neverthe- 
less, been so often made — to shut Him up to a 



The Church: Diversity in Unity. 95 

single inflexible method of bringing sinners out of 
darkness into His marvellous light, the variety which 
marks the cases of conversion recorded in Scripture 
is scarcely less signal than the conversions them- 
selves. Without stopping to comment on so familiar 
a theme, let it suffice to refer to the examples of Levi 
the publican, Zacchaeus, the thief on the cross, Saul 
of Tarsus, Lydia, and the jailer of Philippi. And 
from that day to this, He has continued to exert His 
renewing grace with the same sovereign right of 
choice in respect to occasions and instruments, the 
measure and duration of conviction, and all the in- 
cidents pertaining to this mightiest of changes in the 
character and condition of men. 

Nor in conversion only. He carries the same 
variety of modes and means into the culture and 
development of the immortal germ deposited in re- 
generation. The efficiency in all instances is His 
own. And the one agency He has Himself pre- 
scribed, is His word. But who can describe the 
paths along which He leads His people, and the 
endless combinations of providential and gracious 
influences by which He conducts them step by step 
up the acclivities of the higher life, and fashions 
them to the "likeness of the heavenly"? Who can 
portray the opulent diversity of gifts, intellectual and 
spiritual, with which He endows them ; to one, five 
talents; to another, two; to another, one, — dividing to 



96 The Church: Unify in Diversity. 

every man severally as He will? The fact is patent 
to every one. Let us advert to a few of the more 
important aspects in which it offers itself to our con- 
templation. It will not be difficult to show that this 
Divine law of diversity in unity is as essential to 
the proper perfection of the Church as it is morally 
beautiful. 

I. Let me begin with this latter thought, the moral 
beauty of this arrangement. This is not a thing to 
be argued. Beauty is a matter not of logic, but of 
feeling. Its appeal is to a constitutional suscepti- 
bility. And it is a part of our constitution to crave 
variety. We do not want a painting to be all of one 
color, nor a tune of one strain. The ocean would 
pall upon us if it were always still or always boister- 
ous. Who would ever lift his eyes to the heavens 
if the sky shone with a perpetual serenity? As 
children, we want new toys. And as grown chil- 
dren (for we are nothing more), we tire if we have to 
look continually upon the same objects. It is a relief 
even to re-arrange the books on your shelves and the 
furniture of your room; to put the old articles into 
new positions. We grow weary of looking day by 
day at the same people in the same situation, unless 
they arc our intimate friends. And as to our friends, 
would not have them all alike if we could. It is 
one of the charms of the domestic state, the variety 
there is in families. We cannot only bear, but en- 



The Church: Diversity in Unity. 97 

joy, what is termed a " family resemblance" in a 
household. But who could endure a family that 
looked exactly alike? Much more, a family that 
were exactly alike in voice and manner, in tone and 
temper, in sentiment and character ? 

He who made man made the Church ; and of 
course adapted it to this as well as to every other 
part of his nature. No one can complain of the 
New Testament as a monotonous book ; nor feel 
that when he has seen one of its personages he has 
seen all. They pass and repass before us with that 
variety of character and experience which pertains to 
the actors in other histories. The same diversity 
attaches to the several religious denominations, and, 
generally speaking, to every Church. There is no 
Christian here who has not something peculiar to 
himself; something by which he is distinguished 
from his brethren. And if you would learn how 
copious is this variety, you must take the records 
of the Church and call over the names which make 
up the entire enrolment. There is certainly a " fam- 
ily resemblance," for they are children of one Father; 
and unless they bear some of the lineaments of His 
image, they are not really of the household. But 
beyond this, how unlike they are in their worldly 
circumstances and occupations, in disposition, in in- 
tellectual endowments, in their social qualities, in 
their graces, in their modes and measures of re- 

9 



98 The Church: Unity in Diversity. 



ligious activity! We may lament the errors and 
infirmities which cleave to them. We may wish 
that some were different from what they are. But 
every one would sooner take such a society as it is 
than have all its members recast in the same metallic 
mould. We love the Church all the more because 
its unity, like that of a garden, effloresces in a grate- 
ful variety of fruits and flowers. 

2. The principle of diversity in unity upon which 
the Church is constructed illustrates the pozver and 
efficacy of Divine grace. 

The palpable fact which meets the eye is, that 
while grace is more than a match for depravity in 
its worst forms,- it renews and elevates all the nobler 
traits of humanity ; and in either case, without dis- 
turbing identity of character. The Church, as al- 
ready observed, is recruited from every quarter. 
God selects the objects of His mercy where He 
will. For the most part they are among the chil- 
dren of believers, the true line of succession, but by 
no means confined to these. If He sees fit to sum- 
mon to His service a rich man like Barnabas, a vora- 
cious publican like Zacchaeus, a timid Pharisee like 
Nicodemus, a malignant zealot like Saul, a pagan 
captain like the Centurion, He has but to speak and 
the)- must hear. He will not be shut out from any 
spot of the globe He has created, nor from any hu- 
man heart that He chooses to enter. He will follow 



The Church : Diversity in Unity. 99 

men into the fastnesses of error and impiety, into 
dens of iniquity and idol-temples, and bring them 
forth willing converts to the faith they once de- 
stroyed. He will take by the hand the thoughtful, 
the refined, the affectionate, the teachable, yea, the 
little prattlers who brighten our homes with their 
mirth, and lead them into His house and adopt 
them as His children. Classes constituting the op- 
posite extremes of society, and all the intermediate 
classes, He clothes with a common nature, imbues 
with the same spirit, enriches with kindred gifts, and 
makes them " one in Christ Jesus," while they sev- 
erally retain their marked characteristics. There is 
certainly a resemblance among them which there 
was not before. But there is no such resemblance 
as to expose a single one to the hazard of being 
taken for any one but himself. 

May we not refer to these facts as illustrating the 
power and efficacy of Divine grace ? The problems 
here so successfully resolved would turn to nought 
all human skill and energy. In man's hands these 
various types of character might be bent or broken; 
they could never be renewed. Changed they might 
be, but not changed without sad contortion or 
mutilation. Too often has the experiment been 
tried. Christendom abounds with individuals and 
fraternities, male and female, who show what comes 
of man's arrogating his Maker's work ; of attempting 



ioo The Church: Unity in Diversity. 



to make his fellows new creatures by a complex, 
protracted, cruel regimen of his own, in place of the 
simple teaching of the word and the transforming 
energy of the Holy Ghost. A wonderful achieve- 
ment it is, as wonderful in power as in love, that of 
imbuing- a whole community with a new life, from 
its very nature pervading, elevating, and controlling, 
and yet so incorporating it with all the natural facul- 
ties and functions as to aid their proper working 
and their true development. We cite it as one of 
the fruits of that diversity in unity which enters 
radically into the constitution of the Church. 

3. It is still more to our purpose to refer to the 
wisdom, perhaps we may say the necessity, of this 
principle, in view of the mission assigned to the 
Church. 

It is not for man to say that anything is abso- 
lutely necessary to God in effecting His purposes 
which He has not declared to be so. But we may 
speak of the perfect adaptation of the principle we 
are considering, to the ends for which the Church 
was established. Not to name other topics, the 
Church is appointed to be, under God, the Teacher 
and Guide of the world. Its business is to dis- 
ciple all nations. It has to do with people of 
every type and condition ; with all the sins and all 
the sorrows, all the avocations, all the duties, and 
all the hopes, of humanity. Its field is the world. 



The Church : Diversity in Unity. I o I 

It needs, therefore, laborers of every sort and every 
variety of talent. With fewer gifts in kind, some 
portions of its work would be neglected. If it is to 
carry Christianity through the globe, it must have 
men whose constitutions and training fit them for 
the various climates of the earth. It must have men 
of iron nerve who can face dangers. It must have 
men of the requisite scholarship to grapple with 
strange languages and preach to strange peoples. 
In its home-field there is room for the exercise of 
every kind of gift. Witness the diversity in congre- 
gations; the mission-fields in the cities and in the 
country; the benevolent institutions to be sustained 
and governed ; schools ; hospitals ; prisons ; armies. 
Witness the multitudes of the poor, the sick, the 
sorrowing. Everywhere there are perishing sinners 
to be sought out and instructed in religion. Every- 
where the kingdom of Christ is to be aided in its 
warfare with earth and hell. 

A scheme so vast demands a corresponding variety 
and affluence of talents. And this want is provided 
for in that diversity which, as we have seen, enters 
into the constituency of the Church. There are min- 
isters of every grade of culture and with every kind 
of gifts. How, otherwise, could the ministry fulfil 
its design ? For the people vary indefinitely. No 
one style of preaching would suit them; no two 
styles, nor three, nor six. One may say that a 

9* 



io2 The Church: I T nity in Diversity. 



preacher like President Edwards ought to be accept- 
able to everybody. Another may put in the same 
claim for a Whitefiekl, and a third for a Mason. But 
it would not be so. Some would prefer one of these 
great preachers to the others; and some would pre- 
fer a fourth preacher to any of them. It is well that 
every taste can be gratified. 

And who can survey the broad acres which the 
Church is cultivating, without rejoicing in the com- 
bination of gifts employed in carrying forward the 
work? A radical part of this agency lies in the 
silent power of example ; the simple routine of a 
quiet and upright life. He is not a cipher in the 
Church who is conscientiously discharging the duties 
of his station, however moderate his gifts, and how- 
ever obscure his lot. Perhaps there is no one ele- 
ment so important as this in estimating the entire 
impression of the Church upon the world. Then 
there are Christians whose influence is mainly felt in 
their generous pecuniary contributions to the cause 
of Christ. Others have a gift for teaching. Not a 
few are ready to go forth and minister to the sick 
and the poor in their homes and in hospitals. A 
glance around the field will detect many faithful 
workers who belong to no recognized classes, but 
are unobtrusively doing their Lord's will. We need 
not dwell upon details. The thought which con- 
cerns us now is, that this whole army of workers, 



The Church: Diversity in Unity. 103 

clerical and lay, male and female, is one in faith 
and purpose, in sympathy and hope ; while they are 
many in gifts and graces, in spheres of labor, in 
means and methods of exertion, and in their relative 
measures of success. Some are breaking up the fallow 
ground. Some are sowing. Some are nurturing the 
precious grain. And others reaping and gathering 
the crop. But all are servants of the Great Task- 
Master; all look to Him for direction; and all are 
hoping to celebrate the glorious Harvest-Home in 
His presence. Thus needful is the principle of di- 
versity in unity to the full efficiency of the Church. 
We have already pointed out the moral beauty of 
this arrangement, and shown how it illustrates the 
power and efficacy of Divine grace. 

The unfolding of such a subject suggests the prac- 
tical lessons which grow out of it. I will detain you 
to give expression to only two or three of these. 

One is a lesson of instruction and encouragement 
in respect to religions experience. We have seen that 
this is of no uniform type. Certain elements are es- 
sential, but beyond these it partakes of a very great 
variety. We are not, then, to set up this or that 
instance of conversion, nor this or that form of the 
Christian life, as the standard by which all others 
are to be tested. God has His own methods for 
bringing men into His kingdom, and for keeping 



104 The Church: Unity in Diversity. 

them when there. An absolute identity in all ex- 
amples oi supposed conversion, as to means, occa- 
sions, and exercises, would not merely justify distrust, 
but afford presumptive proof that many cases were 
counterfeit. For this would contravene the principle 
of diversity in unity, which is fundamental, as to His 
kingdom of nature, so also to His kingdom of grace. 
The only safe or authorized mode of trying our state 
is to come to the law and the testimony. 

2. As unity in diversity is the law of the Church, 
it is the duty of all its members to cherish and pro- 
mate the spirit of unity. The apostle points out the 
effect of a schism among the members of the body, 
as illustrative of a divisive spirit among the members 
of the Church. The divisions among Christians have 
always been the opprobrium of religion. They spring 
from false doctrine, and from evil tempers, — such as 
pride, jealousy, envy, uncharitableness, and the like. 
To indulge these passions is to breed discord, and 
thus impair the unity, mar the beauty, and lessen the 
usefulness of the Church. 

3. As diversity in unity is the law of the Church, 
let us try to learn what are oar oivn gifts y and to fill 
each his own place. 

If we are in the Church at all (I do not mean in 
the visible Church merely) we must have some gift, 
and there is a place for us. Your place is not your 
neighbor's, nor his yours. The Corinthians were 



The Church: Diversity in Unity. 105 

too ambitious to heed this. The apostle had to 
argue the point with them, which he did at length. 
He closes by asking, " Are all apostles ? Are all 
prophets ? Are all teachers ? Are all workers of 
miracles ?" The very nature of the Church forbids 
this. There must be " many members," with their 
several gifts and functions, or there could be no 
spiritual body. And it is not a mere matter of per- 
sonal choice with us — our endowments and position. 
There is a higher agency here. " God hath set the 
members, every one of them, in the body (both the 
spiritual and the natural body), as it hath pleased 
Him." His aim in this arrangement is service ; and 
that should be ours. He brings us into the Church 
that we may serve Him, not by doing another's work, 
but our own. 

To learn what this is, we must ask His teaching in 
prayer. We must consider our situation and circum- 
stances. We must endeavor to find out what gifts 
we have, and how they can be used to the best pur- 
pose. The more important spheres of religious ac- 
tivity (for the laity), such as charitable associations, 
teaching, visiting the poor and the sick, and con- 
tributing of one's substance, are too familiar to re- 
quire comment. But every gift involves an obliga- 
tion to use it for your Master. It may be a facile 
needle. It may be music. It may be a capacity for 
writing useful books. It may be the Divine art of 



io6 The Church: Unify i)i Diversity, 



composing hymns of devotion. It may be letter- 
writing, — a beautiful gift, which beguiles the suffering 
of many a weary hour; and soothes the sorrowing; 
and animates the sweet 

". . . . fellowship of kindred minds;" 

and fortifies the tempted and wavering ; and quickens 
the lukewarm; and revives the desponding; and 
cheers the hearts that are perpetually sighing, 

" Nearer, my God, to Thee, 
Nearer to Thee !" 

Yes, you all have your gifts, and you should feel 
that it is a high privilege to employ them in the ser- 
vice of God. Should all do this, — all within a single 
fold even, — with what energy would it clothe the 
Gospel, and how nobly would it illustrate the wisdom, 
power, and grace displayed in the structure of Chrises 
mystical body ! Then only, when we have attained 
this standard, shall we be able to appreciate the value 
of that principle of diversity in unity which is so 
vital to the symmetry, the harmony, and the efficiency 
of the Church. 

4. There is one other lesson which I would gladly 
enforce if the time would permit, viz., a lesson of 
charity in judging of the Christianity of others. 

It will not do for us to forget that while the Church 
is one, it is also many. The gracious principle de- 
velops itself in an endless variety of forms, and dwells 



The Church: Diversity in Unity. 107 

with dispositions and gifts of every type. We are 
not called to exercise the same liking towards all 
Christians, but let us watch against capricious an- 
tipathies. Your brother may have some untoward 
traits and ways, but is he not a brother still ? Of the 
ministers you happen to hear, you dismiss one as tin- 
suited to his work because he is " too metaphysical" ; 
and a second, because he is "too flowery"; a third, 
because he is "too quiet"; and a fourth, because he 
is " too vehement" ; and so on to the end. But you 
greatly err if you think it would have been better to 
fashion all these preachers after your model. This 
diversity of gifts is indispensable to the ministry, in 
regard both to the work to be done and the varieties 
of human character to be dealt with. Each one has 
his vocation. And to brand them as unfit for their 
office may be not only to violate the charity of the 
gospel, but, by implication, to reproach Him who saw 
fit to organize the Church upon this plan. If they 
all cast out devils, why require that they shall every 
one do it in your way? 

The same caution may be needed in passing judg- 
ment upon private Christians who differ widely from 
ourselves. — But I must not trespass further. Let us 
only look well to our own hearts, and try to do our 
own work faithfully. So shall we best help on the 
Church in its sublime mission and honor our gra- 
cious Lord. 



REDEMPTION, A STUDY TO THE ANGELS. 



I. Peter i. 12. 



" Which things the angels desire to look into!' 

" Which things /" — we must read the context to 
understand this allusion. "Of which salvation the 
prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who 
prophesied of the grace that should come unto you : 
searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of 
Christ which was in them did signify, when it testi- 
fied beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory 
that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, 
that not unto themselves, but unto us they did min- 
ister the things, which are now reported unto you by 
them that have preached the Gospel unto you with 
the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven ; which 
things the angels desire to look into." The meaning 
is obvious. The things into which the angels de- 
sire to look, are the things which formed the bur- 
Hen of prophetical and apostolical teaching, to wit: 
the "salvation" of men; the atoning "sufferings of 
Christ/ 1 and "the glory" (G v., glories), His glory and 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 109 

that of His people, "which should follow." In sim- 
pler phrase, the theme which awakens this interest 
among the angels is, Redemption. 

No commentator fails to notice the peculiar force 
and beauty of the verb in this sentence. Our ver- 
sion has it, " desire to look into." It denotes a 
bending attitude with a gaze of fixed intensity. The 
allusion is supposed to be to the figures of the Cheru- 
bim above the mercy-seat in the holy of holies, who 
were represented as bending downwards with their 
eyes fastened upon the blood-sprinkled ark, as if try- 
ing to penetrate the great mystery it symbolized, the 
blending of the law and the Gospel, the justice and the 
mercy of God. Let us dwell for a little upon this in- 
teresting theme, Redemption, a study to the angels. 

It cannot but be deemed remarkable that we 
should be so isolated from the rest of the universe. 
Here are millions of orbs brought within the range 
of our vision by the telescope. We cannot doubt 
that they are the abodes of rational creatures. The 
ingenious theory defended with so much learning 
and logic by one of the most accomplished philoso- 
phers* of our day, which would make our globe the 
only inhabited world, has probably not won a single 
convert in either hemisphere. So natural, so univer- 
sal, is the conviction that these other spheres and 

* Professor WhewelL 
10 



i io Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 

systems arc inhabited, that it may almost be classed 
with the intuitions of the human mind: we accept it 
without argument, and we cling to it in the face of 
argument Yet of the races that tenant these count- 
less worlds we know absolutely nothing. One race 
only besides our own is introduced to us: and of 
that, the notices are quite too meagre to satisfy us. 
We see just enough of the angels to wish to see a 
great deal more. We " desire to look" into their 
affairs, as they into ours. In the absence of full in- 
formation concerning them, we give scope to our 
imaginations, and explore, as we best may, the wide 
realm in which they dwell, and their various powers 
and employments, — not always with a very accurate 
regard to the hints the Scriptures give us of their 
position and functions. 

We are on safe ground in ascribing to them supe- 
rior intelligence and ample knowledge. But the 
knowledge of a creature, whatever his rank, must 
necessarily be progressive. Infinite knowledge (in- 
cluding prescience) pertains only to the Creator. 
The angels, like ourselves, must learn things by the 
nt, — excepting when God may have been pleased 
to reveal His purposes to them. We are not to take 
it for granted that they knew, before this world was 
made, what was to happen here. They were already 
in existence. They saw our globe and the visible 
heavens created: and, at the sublime spectacle, "the 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels, in 

» — 

morning stars saner together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy." But, except through some special 
revelation, of which we have no hint, it was impos- 
sible they should foresee the extraordinary transac- 
tions which were to distinguish this orb from all 
the others scattered through the wide fields of space. 
From the very first, however, the Divine procedure 
on this planet would arrest their attention. The 
Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, the trees of life 
and of the knowledge of good and evil, the myste- 
rious prohibition, and the penalty annexed, — what 
could all this mean? Still more, how would it as- 
tonish them to witness the temptation. They had 
seen Satan and his fellow-apostates cast down to hell : 
and yet he is now permitted to come to this new-born 
world, fresh from its Maker's hand, to enter this 
blooming garden, and to appropriate one of the 
lower animals to the atrocious purpose of seducing 
the happy pair from their allegiance. Nay, he not 
only assails but actually overthrows their virtue. Is 
it fanciful to imagine that this event would fill the 
angels with amazement? that they would say one to 
another, " How can these things be? Is not sin 
that abominable thing which our holy and righteous 
Lord hates with a perfect hatred? Has He not 
testified His reprobation of it by the awful but just 
doom visited upon our compeers who fell? How, 
then, should He allow this pair to fall a prey to the 



i i 2 Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 

wiles of Satan? Why should He create another 
world if it was so soon to be banded over to the 
sway of I lis arch-adversary, — even though He may 
present!}- consign Adam and Eve to the same dismal 
fate with the tempter and his hosts?" 

Filled with surmisings like these, the angels would 
11 desire to look into" the strange opening chapter 
of our history. But something no less inexplicable 
would now inflame their curiosity. They had heard 
the threatening, M In the day thou eatest thereof thou 
shalt surely die." It came from lips which could not 
lie. It was but the inevitable penalty of His law. 
Once before it had been broken, and instantly the 
penalty took effect. And yet Adam and Eve do not 
44 die," — i.e., they do not, on their transgression, M re- 
turn to the dust," nor are they banished into outer 
darkness. Cast off they are from the favor of God ; 
driven from Eden; made to feel that they are ruined; 
but they still live on. And, wonderful to relate, in- 
stead of a sentence of absolute and interminable de- 
struction, there gleams upon them from out the com- 
mingled horrors of that memorable day, a trembling 
ray of hope. To the serpent God said: " I will put 
enmity between thee and the woman, and between 
thy seed and her sqh<\ ; it shall bruise thy head, and 
thou shalt bruise his heel." The angels hear this. 
Can words express how much they would desire to 
look into it? It speaks, as other communications 



Redemption, a Study lo the Angels. 1 1 ; 



had done, of the woman's u seed." Whether this 
was intelligible to them we do not know. The fall 
occurred before the birth of Cain. We are not cer- 
tain that the angels had ever seen an infant. Among 
their own race we may with confidence affirm they 
had not. Whether the same or similar laws prevail 
in other spheres which they had visited, as mark the 
family institute here, we are not informed. But the 
difference between our race and their own, in this 
particular, could not fail to interest them, not only 
at that juncture, but ever afterward. They were all 
created in the full maturity of their powers. Here 
is a globe of vast extent which is to be peopled by 
the descendants of a single pair, increasing and 
spreading through successive generations until they 
reach a thousand, possibly several thousand, millions. 
Whether the angels, then, had seen infants elsewhere 
or not, they could never have gazed upon any with 
the profound interest with which they would ponder 
the aspect and possible destiny of the children of 
Adam and Eve. In some way the seed of this 
woman is to bruise the serpent's head. Such is the 
inscrutable utterance which stays the uplifted arm of 
justice, while it assures them that sooner or later 
justice will take its course, and Satan's head be 
crushed by the race he had made partners in his sin. 
Obscure as this intimation must have been, as well 
to the angels as to the guilty pair, it would unveil to 

IO* 



1 1 4 Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 

them a new attribute of the Godhead. Up to this 
period, it would seem, they had known nothing of 
the Divine Mercy. Its absence could be no defect 
in their eves, for the idea of Mercy was not yet born 
into the universe of creatures. The character of God, 
as they beheld it, was absolutely perfect: there was 
nothing wanting; no excess, and no defect. What 
a discovery was this which now broke upon them ! 
Listening to the fearful words of the Eternal as He 
pronounced sentence upon the tempter and the 
tempted, this vague promise of a Deliverer must 
have been as though He had lifted a veil and dis- 
closed to them one of the brightest glories of His 
character, of the existence of which they had, up to 
that moment, formed no conception. Truth, justice, 
Goodness, Holiness, — with these attributes they were 
familiar. But of Mercy they had never heard. They 
had bowed in grateful worship at His feet. They had 
gathered in shining bands around His throne. They 
had received His mandates, and hastened with them 
on joyful wing to distant orbs and systems. But 
neither in His august presence-chamber, nor in their 
intercourse with other tribes of holy and happy be- 
ings, had they heard of Mercy. Throughout this 
vast concourse of worlds and firmaments no tongue 
had ever lisped her name. Among the rapt hosts 
who stand within the very splendors of the throne, 
no created eye had ever gazed upon her radiant form. 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 1 1 5 

Enfolded in the depths of His own infinitude, she had 
been from eternity awaiting the appointed day of her 
epiphany, — her glorious manifestation to heaven and 
earth. Yet even now that the period has come, she 
does not rise full-orbed upon the world, but mild and 
gently, like the dawn, as befits the quality of Mercy. 
But this shall suffice for angelic eyes. Enough for 
them, this vision of surpassing loveliness which rav- 
ishes their sight, as a single fold of those glitter- 
ing vestments is drawn aside and there falls upon 
their ears this vague promise about the seed of the 
woman. Though Mercy never spake before, she 
needs no interpreter. They know it is her voice ; and 
while they cannot fully comprehend her meaning, 
they do as the shepherds did when she came to them 
in her sweetest guise four thousand years afterward, 
— they " return glorifying and praising God for all the 
things that they have heard and seen." 

These occurrences could not fail to stimulate the 
curiosity of the angels. They would watch with 
deep solicitude the course of the Divine administra- 
tion towards our world. They would treasure every 
fresh intimation of the future deliverance to be effected 
by the seed of the woman. Their superior intelli- 
gence and sagacity, and their advantageous position, 
would enable them to understand better than our 
race could, the types and prophecies pointing to the 
Messiah. But we have no warrant for assuming; that 



1 1 6 Redemption^ a Study to the Angels. 

they comprehended the plan, except as it was car- 
ried into effect. The presumption is, that during 
those fort\' centuries it was a perpetual study to 
them ; and that as the beneficent scheme was grad- 
ually developed, it only increased their desire to look 
into its unfathomable mysteries. 

Not to attempt the historical illustration of so 
broad a theme, let us note a very few of those lead- 
ing facts of redemption which were clearly in the 
contemplation of the apostle when he penned the text. 

The first and chief of these is, to quote St. Peter's 
own words, " tlic sufferings of Christ :" by which we 
may understand His entire work of humiliation from 
Bethlehem to Calvary. We must believe that the 
angels knew, long before the advent, that the prime- 
val promise upon which we have been commenting 
referred to the Second Person of the Trinity ; that 
He was to be the Redeemer of the world ; and that 
in some way it was to be brought about through 
suffering. But it is not certain that they had any 
distinct conception of the incarnation. Another 
apostle exclaims: " Great is the mystery of godli- 
ness, God manifest in the flesh." How could they 
have penetrated this mystery beforehand ? There 
was neither precedent nor analogy to aid them in 
resolving it. It is not probable that they had ever 
heard of the union of two natures in one person. 
And if such a marvel had occurred, not Gabriel him- 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 1 1 7 

self could have soared to the conception of a union 
between the Creator and a creature. Accustomed 
as they were to render co-equal honors to the Trin- 
ity, and especially to adore the Son in " the posses- 
sion of the glory which He had with the Father be- 
fore the world was," how could they think of Him 
as stooping to be "born of a woman," as coming 
into this revolted world as an infant, blending His 
Divinity and our humanity in an indissoluble unity? 
When the event actually took place, they are sent 
to announce it to the shepherds. And the wonder 
which filled the breasts of the shepherds, as they 
stood by that manger, must have been tame as com- 
pared with their own. Hovering, unseen and un- 
thought-of spectators, over that little group, what 
tongue may essay to describe their emotions as they 
beheld in this babe, the Son of the Highest, the 
Creator of all things, Him who "thought it no rob- 
bery to be equal with God," and whom they had 
never seen before except on His throne? Here at 
length it dawns upon them, how the seed of the 
woman is to bruise the serpent's head. But it only 
dawns. They cannot yet divine what is to follow. 
Most earnestly do they "desire to look'' into the 
mystery of this scene at Bethlehem, to comprehend 
this infant, to forecast its predicted career of suffering 
and triumph. But they must wait. And their waiting 
only brings them into the presence of fresh marvels. 



i i 8 Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 



Imagine what a season of suspense those thirty 
years must have been to them which Jesus passed 
at Nazareth. How often would they visit the 
favored village. In what vast encampments would 
they spread around it. With what intense longings 
would they observe His every act and word, and 
ponder its possible bearings upon the great object of 
His incarnation. As He emerged from His seclu- 
sion to enter upon His public ministry, their interest 
would become deeper and deeper still, until it found 
its culmination in the cross. Many of the incidents 
in His life they would understand better than His 
disciples. But there must have been very much 
both in His actions and in His doctrine which they 
would desire to look into more thoroughly. Indeed, 
His official life as a whole would be just of this 
character. It was the life of a sufferer. They had 
always associated suffering with sin. Here was a 
" man of sorrows" who was " holy, harmless, and 
undefiled." They had associated suffering with 
weakness and dependence. Here was the Being 
who laid the foundations of the earth, and stretched 
out the heavens as a curtain, bending under a load 
of grief and wrong enough to crush a whole race 
even of creatures like themselves. They had re- 
ded death as the portion of finite and depraved 
natures. And here the Lord of glory cries, <4 It is 
finished!" and "gives up the ghost." 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 1 1 9 

What a study was this for the angels ! If they 
flocked to Bethlehem, what myriads of them would 
hasten to Calvary! If the nativity perplexed and 
amazed them, how would they stand appalled before 
the crucifixion ! With what energy would they 
strive to sound its awful depths and compass its vast 
significance ! But we must not enlarge. 

Not only would the angels desire to look into the 
" sufferings of Christ," but into the application of 
redemption also. 

They were familiar with two types of character, 
perfect holiness and unmitigated depravity; and with 
two conditions of being, unalloyed happiness and 
absolute misery. Neither their own history nor, so 
far as we are informed, the annals of any other 
sphere supplied them with any example of a char- 
acter in which these elements were commingled, or 
afforded any hint of a possible transition from one 
state to the other. They knew nothing of forgive- 
ness, nothing of renewal. Once a transgressor, there 
remained, for any creature, nothing but an endless 
penalty and an eternal subjection to his evil passions. 
The sacrifice on Calvary now opens to them a new 
world, on earth as well as in heaven. They had, in- 
deed, seen something of this before, for the efficacy 
of the great expiation reached backward to the fall. 
But its triumph was reserved for the new dispensa- 
tion. They have opened the everlasting gates and 



i 20 Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 

let the King of glory in, laden with the spoils of 
earth and hell, and now they behold the Third Per- 
son o\ the Saered Trinity passing out of those gates 
and going down, not on a transient errand, but to 
make Mis permanent abode in this apostate world. 
And here they see His miracles of mercy, — not less 
marvellous in their effects upon the souls of men 
than had been those of the Messiah upon their bodies. 
This whole process of a sinner's conversion and sanc- 
tification, so varied in its times, and methods, and 
subjects; so illustrative of God's sovereignty, and 
power, and mercy ; cannot but be a perpetual study 
to them, affluent in instruction and replete with mo- 
tives to gratitude and praise. 

There must be much in the history of individual 
believers to awaken their sympathies, but still more 
in the general welfare of the Church. In both these 
departments they feel the interest which pertains to 
immediate actors: for they have always been em- 
ployed as u ministering spirits to the heirs of salva- 
tion," and as the servants of God in directing the 
affairs of the world. They cannot know in advance 
who are to be converted, nor what is to be the course 
of Divine Providence, except as they may infer it 
from the prophecies. We may be sure that things 
have not always gone as they expected: that events 
have constantly occurred which were well-nigh as 
inexplicable to them as to us. Must it not be a 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels, 1 2 1 

marvel to them that the Church, the purchase of 
Christ's blood, should have made its way so slowly 
and so painfully in the world? that at one time it 
should be poisoned with error; at another, frozen 
with formalism ; at a third, debauched with secularity ; 
at a fourth, fissured and rent with internal strife? 
Could they decipher the ten early persecutions, the 
Dark Ages, the Papacy, and Islamism? Can they 
understand the wars which deluge Christian nations 
with blood; which enervate and demoralize them, 
arrest all healthful progress, and make a jubilee in 
hell? No such phenomena can meet their eyes in 
any other part of creation. In heaven there is no- 
thing to affect the stability of things ; nor in hell. 
Important changes must take place in those realms 
and in other orbs. But the presumption is, that 
ours is the only globe which is given up to perpetual 
change ; where good and evil are in constant and 
violent collision ; where the two great hostile powers 
of the universe, the good and bad angels, wage their 
Titanic war; and where the Lord of both stoops to 
engage in the mighty fray, and, stranger still, some- 
times permits His malignant foes to gain at least 
seeming victories. Can the angels understand all 
this? Can they thread this huge labyrinth? Can 
they follow the multiform mutations of a scene which 
knows no rest, which recognizes no law but inces- 
sant fluctuation, and which ever and anon plunges, 



122 Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 

as it were, into a chaos so intractable as to suggest 
the fear that the Almighty may, in His wrath, have 
abandoned the world to final anarchy and ruin ? As- 
suredly there must be problems here which would 
baffle even a seraph's skill. But the darkness which 
surrounds them would only increase the desire of 
the angels to look into them. They know that this 
world is yet to be reclaimed: that the kingdom of 
the Nazarene is to absorb all other kingdoms ; that 
His glory is to cover the earth as the waters cover 
the seas. And with all the more earnestness do they 
study the career of God's providence, because they 
cannot divine how this tangled net-work of adverse 
events and hostile agencies, is to lead on to the mil- 
lennial glories of the Church. 

Here, in fact, is another of the themes which 
stimulate the curiosity of the angels, "the glories 
which should follow." 

They have seen the "sufferings of Christ;" they 
would fain see His glory. They have seen — they 
see now — the sufferings of His Church ; they would 
see its glory. They are assured that these glories are 
coming; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it 
They can, no doubt, frame a better conception of 
them than we can. And this very circumstance 
must increase their solicitude to witness the final 
result. They saw the first faint lineament of the 
august plan in Eden. They have not only watched, 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 123 

but assisted in, its gradual unfolding to this hour, as 
they will to its close. They see also the preparation 
for it which is going on in heaven. No wonder that 
they long for its sublime consummation; that they 
desire to look into those coming glories which are 
to crown the perfect and indissoluble union between 
Christ and His Bride, the ransomed Church. 

Such are a very kw of the things which, accord- 
ing to our apostle, "the angels desire to look into.'' 
If we inquire whence this curiosity on their part, we 
may easily conjecture some of the motives which 
prompt it 

Without dwelling upon that simple craving after 
knowledge which pertains to every created intelli- 
gence, and which must find so luxuriant a field in 
the themes of Christianity, we may refer to the aid 
which the angels derive from Redemption in their 
study of the character and government of God. 

To any creature the knowledge of the Creator is 
the most important of all knowledge. To holy 
beings, no study can be so attractive. The angels, 
as already observed, have signal advantages for this 
study. But there is no volume open to them which 
yields so much information concerning God as Re- 
demption. We have illustrated this in respect to one 
of His perfections. It holds true no less of His 
wisdom and justice than of His mercy. St. Paul 
glances at this point: " to the intent that now unto 



i 24 Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 

principalities and powers in heavenly places might 
be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of 
God." Heaven cannot lack for evidences of the 
Divine wisdom ; but if it would see this attribute in 
its glory, it must come down to earth. Its grand 
achievement is redemption. Justice vindicated, and 
mercy triumphant: sin punished, and the sinner 
saved : heaven bestowed upon the guilty and the 
vile, and the recipient not elated, but humbled: 
Satan vanquished by the seed of the woman: death 
turned into a fountain of life: the cross not merely 
transfigured into the brightest crown of the Son of 
God, but multiplied into as many such crowns as 
there will be ransomed sinners in heaven; — this is 
the wisdom which streams forth from redemption, 
and bathes Cherubim and Seraphim, no less than 
man, with its splendors. 

And what we affirm of His wisdom we claim also 
for His other moral attributes. Here " mercy and 
truth meet together, righteousness and peace kiss 
each other." Nowhere else has the Deity made so 
full, so august, so grateful, a revelation of Himself. 
From none of His works is He to receive such a 
inie of praise. None will so fill the universe 
with His glory. This is one reason why the angels 
to look into it. 

A second reason is to be found in their personal 
concern in the results of redemption. 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 125 

It is an opinion sanctioned by many eminent 
names in theology, that the good angels owe their 
confirmation in holiness in some way to the media- 
tion of Christ. This is not asserted in Scripture, but 
there are passages which seem to favor the idea. 
We read, e.g., of "the elect angels." We are told 
that God " gathers together in one all things in 
CJirist, both which are in heaven and which are 
on earth, even in Him." And that "all power is 
given Him in heaven and in earth." There is room, 
then, for the conjecture that to Him these unfallen 
spirits may be indebted for their permanent preser- 
vation from apostasy. One thing is beyond ques- 
tion : redemption has supplied them with new mo- 
tives to fidelity, of the most tender and persuasive 
character. 

There is another respect in which they are inter- 
ested in this work. In the revolt of their associates, 
they became no less their enemies than the enemies 
of God. That mighty war of which we have so 
many glimpses, is a conflict between the fallen and 
the unfallen spirits : 

u . . . . tho' strange to us it seem 
At first, that angel should with angel war 
And in fierce hosting meet, who wont to meet 
So oft in festivals of joy and love 
Unanimous, as sons of one Great Sire, 
Hymning the Eternal Father." 
II* 



126 Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 

It could not be otherwise. When Lucifer lifted 
his parricidal arm against God, the blow was aimed 
at every faithful subject of God throughout the uni- 
verse. Our great Epic Poet has not transcended the 
bounds of sober verity in representing the hosts of 
heaven as following their and our Divine Leader to 
our globe, here to contest with Satan the mastery of 
the human soul. In all the plots and counterplots, 
the assaults and repulses, the victories and defeats, 
of this war of centuries, they have taken a conspicu- 
ous part. Their immediate personal concern in it, 
then, is a cogent reason why they should desire to 
look into the mystery which infolds it. 

And this imports that their own happiness is in- 
volved in the issue. 

Merely to glance at this point, the benevolence of 
the angels must attract them to the study of redemp- 
tion. They know what the happiness of heaven is. 
They have vividly before their eyes the misery of 
hell. Here is a race whose destiny is undecided, 
the only race which is in this anomalous condition. 
They are sinners, and doomed to death. But a 
Saviour is offered them, and they may escape the 
doom. Whatever the issue, it must be irreversible. 
The fate of millions of souls hangs upon the trem- 
bling balance. Is it for an angel to look upon such 
a scene with indifference? This were to belie their 
nature; almost to betray their Lord. So far from 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 127 

indifference, they are vigilant in defending men from 
the perils that surround them. They omit nothing 
which may promote the progress of true religion. 
They watch w T ith solicitude the effects produced by 
the preaching of the Gospel, and other means of 
grace. When even one sinner is converted, they 
hasten to announce it in heaven, and there is joy 
throughout all their shining ranks. They count it 
as a privilege to minister to the people of God. 
They encamp around them in danger, and deliver 
them. They succor them in sorrow and suffering. 
And at death, they receive the departing spirit, and 
convoy it to the Saviour's presence. To beings of 
such pure benevolence, offices of this kind must 
yield great happiness, especially when exercised to- 
wards those for whom the Lord of both saints and 
angels laid down His life. It can occasion no sur- 
prise, then, that they should never weary in studying 
the plan of salvation. 

But it is time to conclude this discourse. And I 
shall do it with two reflections, as obvious as they 
are important. 

I. Let us borrow from this Scripture a single ray 
of light to set forth the quality of that skepticism 
which men of cultivated minds sometimes cherish 
respecting Christianity. 

Now, as of old, the Gospel is "to the Jew a stum- 



i 28 Redemption^ a Study to the Angels. 

bling-block and to the Greek foolishness." You 
stigmatize it as not only oppressive in its demands, 
but even irrational in its principles. The doctrine of 
pardon through an atonement; of a gratuitous sal- 
vation through the obedience of a substitute, with- 
out any personal merit of your own ; of a transfor- 
mation of character wrought in the soul by the direct 
power of God ; — may suffice for children and peas- 
ants : it cannot command the suffrages of educated 
men. This is your feelfng, — your feeling as you 
look down in pity, if not in derision, upon the un- 
lettered around you. It so happens, however, that 
there is another race who look down upon you; 
a race whose intellectual elevation separates them 
even from our Lockes and Newtons and Laplaces 
by an immeasurably wider space than that which 
divides you from the people you hold in such 
contempt. In your foolish and criminal pride, 
you carry yourselves haughtily towards your fellow- 
creatures at your side. But let an angel come to 
you, as one came to the Saviour's tomb, " whose 
countenance was like lightning, and his raiment 
white as snow," and, like the sentinels who kept 
guard there, you would %i shake and become as dead 
men." Like Manoah, you would be ready to cry 
out, "Surely we shall die, because we have seen 
God." Well, heaven is full of such angels. Nor 
heaven only. 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 129 

" Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth." 

Earth is their favorite sojourn. We have reason to 
believe that there is not one of these countless orbs 
that spangle the firmament, which they love so well 
to visit and where they spend so much time. And 
wherefore ? That they may cultivate the arts, and 
master the sciences, and amass the various knowl- 
edge on which you pride yourselves ? No. But to 
look into the deeper mysteries, and explore the 
richer treasures, and pursue the sublimer discoveries 
of that faith which you disdain to accept, or even 
candidly and thoroughly to examine. Away with 
this pretentious sciolism ! Go to the angels for a 
lesson of humility, and learn from them that if you 
would ever comprehend "these things" which so 
engross and ravish them, — if you would not die, and 
die eternally, without the sight of spiritual, saving 
truth, — you must search for it in a very different 
temper from that which has hitherto inspired your 
studies. 

2. There is a keen rebuke in this Scripture for 
those who are living in the neglect of the Gospel. 

I am not speaking now of avowed opposers of re- 
ligion. The admonition, my unconverted hearers, is 
for you. What a reproach to any of us that we 
should be less interested in the work of redemption 
than the angels! They need no Saviour. It was 
not for their companions He died. Had He taken 



i $o Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 

on Him the nature of angels, this solicitude might 
have been anticipated. But it was our nature He 
assumed; our race He ransomed; our globe He 
made the theatre of those stupendous events to 
which the text alludes. These transactions are a 
study to the heavenly hosts. From every quarter 
they come here to learn lessons in theology, which 
no other sphere, not even heaven itself, could teach 
them. Employed in various ways in the affairs of 
our world, — in its harvests, its politics, its social 
progress, its wars, its storms and pestilences, — this 
is their chosen theme, their constant and delightful 
study. Nothing so invites, so entrances them as re- 
demption. And among the marvels which attract 
and confound them, the indifference of men to this 
subject cannot be the least signal. Does it not 
strike you so? Are you not sometimes amazed at 
your own torpor, — your ungrateful, criminal insensi- 
bility to the Gospel? Are the angels to be more 
concerned about redemption than we are, for whom 
Christ died? Is all heaven to be moved for our 
deliverance, and are we to slumber on? Is all the 
generous sympathy and all the watchful care of these 
exalted beings for our salvation to be turned to 
nought by our wilful blindness and perversity? As- 
suredly, my dear hearers, this conduct must yield its 
fruit. You must yet confront these angels. If you 
persevere in this course they will meet you at the 



Redemption, a Study to the Angels. 1 3 1 

bar of Christ to overwhelm you with their testi- 
mony to your unbelief and impenitency. How much 
better to emulate their example now ; humbly and 
prayerfully to look into the things of redemption, 
and own the Lord of angels as your Redeemer. 



CHRIST, THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 



Haggai 



11 And the Desire of all nations shall come" 

The last three Prophets, in the order of the Old 
Testament canon, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, 
lived after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish 
captivity. The two brief chapters which bear the 
name of Haggai are mainly taken up with exhorta- 
tions concerning the rebuilding of the temple* Re- 
ferring in the context to the splendor of Solomon's 
temple, he utters the remarkable prediction, that " the 
glory of the latter house should be greater than of 
the former." " Remarkable," I call it, because his 
countrymen, whom he was urging to arise and build, 
could not have expected, with their scant means, to 
erect a structure which should rival the gorgeous 
temple of their fathers; and, as a matter of fact, the 
edifice they reared came far short of it in architect- 
ural magnificence. This is a cogent reason for ad- 
hering to the traditionary interpretation of the text 
132 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations. 133 

as pointing to the Messiah. Eminent critics insist 
upon the rendering, " The beauty of the heathen, 
or of all nations, shall come ;" i.e., their beautiful 
things : their silver and gold and treasures of every 
kind shall come (in other phrase, shall be brought) 
into the promised kingdom foretold in the context. 
Even in this view the spirit of the passage is not in 
conflict with the other explanation ; for the reference 
is confessedly to the reign of the Messiah. But in 
writing to the Hebrews, St. Paul quotes the preceding- 
verses as applying (so he is commonly understood) 
the shaking of the earth and the heavens there men- 
tioned, to the great civil and military convulsions, 
which heralded the advent of Christ and the opening 
of the new dispensation. It is in this connection the 
prophet affirms that "the Desire of all nations shall 
come;" and that the new temple shall be more glo- 
rious than the old. As this was not verified in a 
material sense, Christian commentators of all schools 
have generally agreed that it must refer to the actual 
presence of the Redeemer in the second temple. 
The former temple contained a visible emblem of the 
Deity, the cloud of glory shadowing the mercy-seat. 
But the Lord himself came to the later temple. That 
had the shadow; this the substance. The type was 
there; the ante-type here. The resplendent prophecy 
there; the more resplendent fulfilment here. On 
these grounds we seem warranted in adhering; to the 



i 34 ( 7wlsl the Desire of all Nations. 

ancient view, that the text is a prediction of the 
coming of the Messiah: " The Desire of all nations, 
the promised Deliverer, shall come" 

Let us, then, contemplate the Lord Jesus Christ as 
44 the Desire of all nations." The title, it must be ad- 
mitted, requires some explanation, since He is, to 
so large a portion even of the nominally Christian 
world, u as a root out of dry ground, without form 
or comeliness. " 

It is reasonable to suppose that this title has some 
respect to the design of the Father in sending Him 
into the world. The Jews could not believe that sal- 
vation was intended for any but themselves. But 
this fond conceit was at variance with their own 
Scriptures. In the covenant of redemption, the 
language of the Father to the Son was, 4< It is a 
light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to 
raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the pre- 
served of Israel : I will also give thee for a Light to 
the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto 
the end of the earth." (Isa. xlix. 6.) Accordingly, 
in that beautiful prophecy of the patriarch (Gen. 
xlix. io), one of the earliest on record, it is declared, 
44 Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be." 
Many times is this repeated along the line of proph- 
ecy. And when at length the infant Immanuel ap- 
pears, the venerable Simeon, taking the beloved child 
in his arms, utters over Him that touching, prophetic 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations. 135 

aspiration, " Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant de- 
part in peace, according to Thy word : for mine eyes 
have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared 
before the face of all people ; a Light to lighten the 
Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel." 

We may not pry too curiously into the reasons of 
that economy which virtually restricted salvation for 
several centuries to the seed of Abraham. Enough 
that it was the declared purpose of God to remove 
those walls of separation, and provide a Redeemer 
for the "world." "Ask of me, and I will give thee 
the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost 
parts of the earth for thy possession." He did ask ; 
and the purpose and promise which began to pass 
into fulfilment on the day of Pentecost, are still 
achieving their victories before our eyes. 

This, indeed, may be cited as a separate confirma- 
tion of the title, the Desire of all nations. 

While He has not, up to this time, been the actual 
Desire of all of every nation, nor even of all of any 
one nation, yet very many of different nations have 
owned and adored Him as their Lord. A spectator 
of that scene at Pentecost could scarcely have re- 
pressed the feeling, " Surely, the Desire of all nations 
has come." For nearly twenty distinct nations and 
tribes came forward, by their representatives, on that 
memorable day, to do homage to the Son of God. 
More than thrice twenty have followed in their 



136 C hrist, the Desire of all Nations. 

steps. Indeed, wherever His word has gone He has 
found friends and worshippers. In every land there 
have been some to desire Him. No nation so re- 
fined, none so debased, but there have been individ- 
uals among them to do Him honor. 

He is the only Being that has appeared in the 
world of whom this could be affirmed. Every 
nation, pagan, Mohammedan, and Christian, has its 
heroes and sages. Within their respective coun- 
tries they have received general homage. In some 
instances, they have acquired a world-wide celeb- 
rity. But for none of them could it be claimed that 
lie was the Desire of all nations, in the sense in 
which this title is challenged for Jesus of Naza- 
reth. Take the name of Confucius, of Aristotle, of 
Plato, of Mohammed even, and carry it round the 
world. Explain the ethical or religious system de- 
vised by any one of these distinguished men. Em- 
ploy all the arts of learning and logic to enforce its 
dicta upon the human mind and conscience. And 
what have you accomplished? Here and there, 
among the more cultivated peoples, you will have 
interested a few persons in the study of the themes 
presented. In the case of Mohammedanism, you will 
have made converts among the ruder tribes. But 
whoever may have been your hero, you will not re- 
turn from your mission with the feeling, " Here is 
the Desire of all nations." Nowhere — not in a single 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations, 137 

bosom, or in respect to a single philosopher — will 
you have enkindled the emotions of love and grati- 
tude, of trust and joy, which ravish so many hearts 
throughout those very lands when the name of Jesus 
Christ, the Anointed of God, is pronounced. It is 
not that they admire Him as they may admire a 
great captain like Caesar or Wellington ; nor that 
they revere Him as they may an illustrious sage, 
like Zoroaster or Socrates ; nor that they honor 
Him as they may a generous philanthropist, like 
John Howard or William Wilberforce. It is some- 
thing deeper, loftier, holier, and more lasting than 
this. And it is a common sentiment. It is a plant 
that will grow in every soil and climate, — on the 
rock, in the clay, in the sand ; by the rivers and in 
the desert; at the equator and at the poles. Men 
of all kindreds and languages regard Jesus Christ 
with the same feelings. As between the cultivated 
scholars of Christendom and the African Caffir there 
is a chasm, intellectual, social, and moral, which no 
art of man can bridge over. And yet it needs only 
that two strangers, of whatever variant climes and 
tongues, standing on opposite sides of this abyss, 
shall be brought to Jesus Christ, to create a concord 
and a sympathy between them more complete and 
durable than any which springs out of the most en- 
dearing ties of natural affection. There may still be 
a wide difference in the breadth and comprehension 



138 Christy the Desire of all Nations. 

of their spiritual views; and nearly as great an in- 
equality as before in their relative grades of mental 
culture. But when they think of the Redeemer, it 
will be with a common feeling of want and unworthi- 
ness, with a common affiance upon His sacrifice, and 
common sentiments of love and thankfulness. And 
this, in turn, will inspire a mutual esteem and make 
them feel that they are " one in Christ Jesus." 

The case is stronger still. Christ is the one para- 
mount Desire of those who have scarcely anything 
else in common. Men who are the poles apart on 
other topics, — on questions of literature, of politics, 
of trade, of metaphysics, of church-government, — use 
the same language when they bow before the mercy- 
seat, sing the same psalms of praise to the Redeemer, 
and labor with the same zeal to make Him known 
to others. Where He is concerned, all their hopes 
and aspirations coalesce, like needles pointing to the 
same pole. In this identity of experience there is 
ample reason why He should be styled the " Desire 
of all nations." 

It may be alleged, however, that this view compre- 
hends only those persons of whatever country who 
have been brought to a personal knowledge of Christ 
as their own Redeemer. Is there any sense in which 
the title in the text can be applied to Him in its lit- 
eral import? Is He, in the obvious signification of 
the words, the " Desire of all nations"? 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations. 139 

Of course he cannot be the conscious Desire of na- 
tions who have never heard of Him: this would be 
a self-contradiction. But He may be, nay, He actually 
is, the unconscious Desire even of these nations, and 
so the " Desire of all nations." That is to say, there 
are desires common to the nations who know Him 
not, and to the nations that know Him, which can be 
satisfied only in Jesus Christ. We may suppose a 
city to be scourged with a pestilence which baffles 
the skill of its physicians. There is a medicine which 
would cure the disease. The afflicted people do not 
yet know of it. But every one of them is craving 
such an antidote. Would it not be proper to say of 
this medicine, " It is the desire of all their hearts" ? 
This is what we affirm of Christ in respect to the 
nations that have not heard of him. 

He is their Desire, inasmuch as they long for a 
competent and infallible Teacher. Enfeebled and 
depraved as human nature is, it craves truth as its 
proper aliment. The love of truth is natural to man. 
It may be blunted and borne down by vice and error 
and passion ; but it is not annihilated. There is still 
a latent yearning that is not to be pacified until it 
finds the truth which God has appointed as its nutri- 
ment. If proof of this be needed, look around. 
What is the mainspring of that activity which per- 
vades the intellectual world ? The pursuit of truth 
(I do not say of spiritual and saving truth) is the 



140 Christy the Desire of all Nations. 

grand aim which engrosses all minds. In every 
branch of letters, in every science, in every depart- 
ment of society, in all professions and occupations, 
men are seeking after truth. And it is no less the 
anxious aspiration of many burdened hearts amidst 
the gloom of paganism, and in the darkness of skep- 
ticism, " What is truth f" Beyond the sphere of the 
Christian Scriptures, mankind have always been the 
sport of ignorance and error. One teacher follows 
another, and one system supplants another, each 
leading the multitude captive for the time, but all 
deceptive and tantalizing. These systems vary in- 
definitely among themselves. Some are more ra- 
tional and of better moral tendency than others; are 
more consistent, more practical, and more useful. 
But they labor under the same fatal defects : they 
are none of them clear enough to answer the pur- 
poses of a chart ; and none of them are clothed with 
authority. The voice with which they speak is the 
voice of feeble, short-sighted man ; and the course of 
events is constantly branding their utterances with 
ignorance and folly. 

Left to these blind guides, the nations have lived 
and died, wandering sadly through the mazes of 
error. Here and there they have rested for a while 
in some system which wore a better semblance than 
the one it superseded. But after a while this also 
has proved an ignis-fatuus, and they have found them- 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations. 141 

selves without support or asylum. These changes, 
however, have rather fostered than impaired the in- 
ward craving for some wise, unerring, and authori- 
tative teacher. Worn and wearied with perpetual 
disappointments, humanity has longed for the ad- 
vent of One who could resolve its doubts, allay its 
fears, and re-inspire its hopes, by unfolding to it 
immortal truth, — truth in its purity, its fulness, 
its benevolence, and its Divine sanctions. Such a 
Teacher appeared in the Son of God incarnate. He 
came to reveal the truth on all those subjects which 
are of vital importance to man ; to dispel his igno- 
rance, rectify his mistakes, and conduct him where 
he could plant his feet on solid ground, and feel that 
he had exchanged light for darkness, certainty for 
conjecture, and peace for hopeless perplexity ■ and 
apprehension. So much was this the character of 
Christ as a Teacher, that He could even, without 
extravagance or presumption, lay His hand upon 
His breast and say, " I am the Truth." For all 
essential and saving truth emanates from, and centres 
in, Him. And in this view we vindicate the title 
applied to Him by the prophet, as the " Desire of all 
nations." 

Another mute prophecy of His advent, virtually 
included in the one just considered, is to be found in 
the general longing of mankind for a clearer mani- 
festation of the Deity. 



[42 Christy the Desire of all Nations. 



Man has been sufficiently degraded by sin ; but 
he must have been completely brutalized not to 
retain some sense of a Higher Power to whom he 
owed allegiance. There is an ineradicable law writ- 
ten upon his heart, which points to a sovereignty 
without himself, and makes him yearn for its revela- 
tion. He must have a god. If he cannot have the 
true God, he will fashion gods to himself. This he 
has been doing from the period of the primal apos- 
tasy. And if anything could abase the pride of 
human reason, it would be to look over the globe 
and see the objects which man has deified. Not to 
go into details, which the present argument does 
not call for, there is no visible thing, from the sun 
in the heavens to the worm we tread upon, that 
has not by some tribe or nation been exalted into 
a god. The mythologies alike of the most polished 
and the most ignorant peoples, have abounded with 
gods created by men's fears and hopes out of their 
own passions and vices. The vague but deep-seated 
craving after a blending of the seen and the unseen, 
the Divine and the human, the Creator and the 
creature, has found expression, on the one hand, in 
the apotheosis of heroes ; and on the other, in the 
incarnations of the Deity: the former, as in the dei- 
fied warriors of Greece and Rome, lifting up man to 
(j<>(\ ; the latter, as in the avatars of the Hindoos, 
bringing God down to man. Everywhere, and in all 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations. 143 

ages, the deathless principle in man has been press- 
ing against the impenetrable curtain which shuts us 
in, essaying to find or make some rent through 
which it might gain a transient glimpse of that 
mysterious Being who sits there enthroned in awful 
majesty, if, peradventure, there might be some subtle 
bond of sympathy to link His nature with our own. 
In other words, man has sought a clearer manifes- 
tation of the Deity, and he has hoped to behold 
Him as, in some way, a sharer of our humanity. 
This universal yearning — for so we are warranted in 
regarding it — is met in the mission of Jesus Christ. 
The desire of all nations is satisfied in Him. As a 
revelation of God, His presence throws into shadow 
the brightest glories of the Divinity impressed upon 
the works of creation and providence. No nation 
need now ask in despondency, " What is God?" 
For in the Person of the Redeemer He offers Him- 
self to the contemplation and homage of the world, 
with His perfections unimpaired, and yet so veiled 
that mortal eyes can look upon them. And here, 
too, is the human with the Divine. Here is the 
strange commingling of the might and majesty, the 
immensity and holiness of the Godhead, with the 
innocent infirmities, the love and the pity and the 
tenderness of a fellow-man and fellow-sufferer. Ecce 
Homo! Ecce Deus ! Behold the Man! Behold the 
God ! What craving of the soul is not provided 



1 44 C lirist, the Desire of all Nations. 



for here? Summon the nations from afar, — "from 

earth's remotest bound, " — Jew and Gentile, Christian 
and pagan, polytheist and pantheist: let them look 
upon our glorious Immanuel and say whether all 
they have longed to know concerning God is not 
revealed in Jesus Christ ; whether He does not meet 
all the demands of their reason and all the yearn- 
ings of their hearts ! Do we err, then, when we 
affirm that " the Desire of all nations" has come? 

With still greater emphasis may we point to 
Christ as "the Desire of all nations" in respect to 
His redeeming work. 

The grand necessity of the race is a Saviour. 
From the hour Adam hid himself from his Maker 
in the garden until now this has been man's ad- 
mitted, paramount, universal want. Every religion 
is founded upon it, — even the most revolting forms 
of polytheism, and the devil-worship of the poor 
Africans. Wherever man is there is a sense of sin 
and danger; a feeling of exposure to penalty; the 
dread of an offended Deity. This sentiment has 
ever expressed itself in one and the same form, that 
of sacrifice. Inheriting the conviction from the first 
pair, which they must have received by direct reve- 
lation, mankind have everywhere acted upon the 
belief that the offering up of life was essential to 
placate the God, too often the unknown God, they 
had displeased. Jt is no mere dictum of the Bible, 



Christy the Desire of all Nations. 145 

"Without shedding of blood there can be no remis- 
sion." It is part of the " law written upon the 
heart." Witness the animals daily offered upon a 
million of altars. Witness the human victims im- 
molated sometimes by hecatombs. They all mean 
the same thing. They attest the universal con- 
science of guilt, and the necessity of appeasing the 
Deity by the sacrifice of life. The feeling is, that 
the more costly the sacrifice the more effectual is 
the expiation. Men have, therefore, brought to the 
altar their choicest animals. Nations have exulted 
in human sacrifices. And in great emergencies they 
have sought to avert public danger by selecting the 
noblest and most beautiful of their young men and 
maidens, and devoting them to slaughter with im- 
posing religious rites. 

This is one aspect of the question before us. It 
has another of kindred significance. The literature 
of all nations abounds with allusions to the bondage 
in which man is held by sin, and the necessity of de- 
liverance from it. The burden which you and I feel 
is not peculiar to us, nor to the people of Christian 
lands. Earnest and thoughtful men, who never saw 
the first glimmer of light from the Sun of righteous- 
ness, have felt and deplored it. They have de- 
scribed, as we describe, the fierce contest between 
the good and the evil principles in the breast. They 
have mourned their subjection to their inferior appe- 



146 Christy the Desire of all Nations. 

tites. They have sighed for deliverance from this 
cruel thraldom; for freedom from the tyranny of sin. 
This is the other aspect of the question. 

Now, in neither of these relations has man been 
able to annul the curse or to escape from it. In rare 
instances a patient adherence to the maxims of some 
philosophic school has relaxed the fetters of sin. In 
still more, the blood of a victim has brought tran- 
sient peace of conscience. But there has been no 
general and permanent relief. Sin has still ruled the 
soul with a rod of iron. Conscience has still clam- 
ored. And the race has struggled on under its 
crushing sorrows, longing for a true expiation and 
an actual deliverance. 

The expiation has been made. The deliverance 
has come. In the Cross of Christ there is that which 
will satisfy even these yearnings, — the deepest, the 
saddest, the most abiding, the most universal, known 
to fallen humanity. " Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners, even the chief." Here is the 
sublime and precious truth that man has been grop- 
ing after all adown the ages; the truth which so 
many breaking hearts have waited for through the 
weary vigils of a long night of pagan darkness. 
Stay the uplifted axe. God needs not your victims. 
11 All the beasts of the forest are His, and the cattle 
upon a thousand hills." " Will the Lord be pleased 
with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations. 147 

rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my 
transgression? the fruit of my body for the sin of 
my soul?" Alas, these sacrifices have too often 
been offered, and He " would not away with them." 
There is His sacrifice, — on the cross. That blood 
has an infinite value. It cries to heaven for mercy. 
It takes away sin. It takes away all sin. It makes 
the scarlet soul like snow, and the crimson like 
wool. It avails for the Jew and for the Gentile. It 
brings pardon and it brings peace. It breaks the 
dominion of sin in the breast. It insures deliver- 
ance as well from the inward reign of depravity as 
from its outward curse. And in the end, it insures 
to the once enslaved and loathsome sinner a heaven 
of perfect purity and everlasting joy. 

Thus fully are the essential wants of the soul met 
by the sacrifice of the Son of God; and we claim for 
Him, therefore, this honored title of the 4< Desire of 
all nations." 

It has now been shown that among the deep- 
seated and universal sentiments of the human race 
are these, to wit: — They desire a competent and 
infallible Teacher. They desire a clearer manifes- 
tation of the Deity. And they desire a true 
atonement for sin, and complete deliverance from 
its servitude and corruption. These longings of 
humanity (and if the time would permit others 
might be specified) are thoroughly met and satis- 



148 Christy the Desire of all Nations. 

Bed in Jesus Christ, and prove Him to be "the 

I >ESIRE OF ALL NATIONS." 

Our prophet, writing five hundred years before 
the advent, says, "The Desire of all nations shall 
come? You would naturally expect me to speak of 
His actual coming. But we have been so long be- 
guiled by the august and touching title under which 
He is here presented to us, that a few words only 
can be devoted to His advent. 

As regards the time of His coming, reference has 
already been made to the statement in the context, 
that it was to be while the temple, then about to be 
built, was standing. This is one of the texts upon 
which we rely in our controversy with the Jews. 
They are looking for a Messiah yet to come. Hag- 
gai tells them that their Messiah was to come dur- 
ing the period of the second temple; and that His 
presence w r ould make " the glory of this latter house 
greater than of the former. ,, It is an established 
historical fact that the Jews themselves expected 
the Messiah to appear in this temple, down to the 
time when Vespasian destroyed it. Their posterity, 
to evade the force of the testimony from this predic- 
tion, allege that the temple in which Jesus appeared 
was not this but a third temple, erected by Herod. 
The answer is, that this temple was never wholly 
destroyed; that Herod repaired it, and no doubt re- 
built portions of the edifice; that this is evident from 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations. 149 

the fact that, during the entire "forty-six years" in 
which he was engaged in this work, there was a 
temple at Jerusalem in which the worship of God 
was conducted ; and that, in point of fact, the Jews 
of those days made no distinction between the tem- 
ple of Zerubbabel and that of Herod, but referred to 
them as one and the same temple. 

There are various other prophecies which bear 
upon the question of the period appointed for the 
advent ; but it will not be necessary to cite them 
here. It will be more to our purpose to advert 
briefly to the manner of the Messiah's coming. 

This, too, was distinctly pointed out by the pen of 
prophecy, especially in those remarkable predictions, 
" A virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall 
call his name Immanuel" (Isa. vii. 14); and "Unto 
us a child is born, unto us a Son is given/' etc. (Isa. 
ix. 6). Yet no one of Haggai's time, interpreting his 
language of the Messiah, could well have supposed 
that He would so come. Nay, it seems very won- 
derful to us before whom the whole history has been 
enrolled. The inspired portraiture presents Him to 
us as the "Desire of all nations;" as a Teacher, 
Leader, Deliverer, Saviour, and Comforter, who was 
the yearning of all hearts ; whose coming, therefore, 
would be the great event of the ages ; the transac- 
tion which, as might be presumed, would gather 
upon itself the profound attention and the deepest 

'3* 



i 50 Christy the Desire of all Nations. 

sympathies o( the whole world. Men of that day 
would ask, — they ti&Zask, — with an absorbing inter- 
est, u Where and how will the ' Desire of all nations' 
make I lis appearance?" And zve marvel afresh as 
often as we turn to Bethlehem and behold "the De- 
sire of all nations'' lying a helpless infant in that 
manger. 

Step into that crowded caravansary, and you will 
exclaim with the apostle, " Great is the mystery of 
godliness!" What wonders meet and mingle in 
this child! Holding in your hand, not the full blaze 
of prophecy, but the single taper before us, how in- 
comprehensible does it seem that the most intense 
longings of all nations should be pointing uncon- 
sciously to this sleeping babe; that the sun in his 
radiant circuit should shine upon no palace and no 
hovel from which the winds of heaven, as they sweep 
by, do not waft a pensive sigh towards this gentle 
infant; that in this tiny frame there should be gar- 
nered up treasures of wisdom and love and sympa- 
thy enough to fill to overflowing all human bosoms ; 
and that we should be told of a day in the distant 
future when myriads of ransomed sinners shall go 
up in shining robes, and proclaim to an assembled 
universe that this child was the Desire of their 
hearts, and in Him their every craving had been 
satisfied : nay, that after they were all satisfied, the 
fulness of grace and love that dwelt in Him was no 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations. 151 

more impaired than is the splendor of the sun by 
the beams with which he floods the globe in a 
single diurnal revolution. 

And yet, while we wonder, we perceive and ad- 
mire the mingled wisdom and benevolence of this 
provision. It was the gracious design of our Heav- 
enly Father, not simply to save His people from 
their sins, but to save them in a way which should 
invest their deliverance with its highest possible in- 
terest and value. This end has been effectually 
secured by the arrangement we have been contem- 
plating. To the attributes of the Godhead our Re- 
deemer adds not only the human nature, but a per- 
sonal experience of life through its several stages 
and its countless vicissitudes. And thus He has be- 
come a " merciful and faithful High-Priest," " like 
unto His brethren," a sharer of their temptations 
and trials. This makes salvation doubly precious 
to us. Is there any Christian mother who, as she 
looks upon her infant, is not cheered by the reflec- 
tion that Jesus was once cradled in a mother's arms? 
Is it not a sweet encouragement to the young to go 
with freedom to the Saviour, that they know He 
was once a child? Does it not hallow our house- 
hold ties and pleasures to remember that He spent 
the greater part of His days within the sacred pre- 
cincts of a family circle? And do not the tempted 
and troubled of every name find comfort in the 



152 Christy the Desire of all Nations. 

thought, that He has made the entire pilgrimage of 
life, from childhood to maturity, and tasted of all its 
sorrows ? Let us bless God, then, that the " Desire 
of all nations" did stoop to be "made of a woman," 
and to enter the world as the Babe of Bethlehem. 

But we must not pursue this theme. It is time to 
suggest one or two lessons, by way of turning the 
subject to some practical account. 

It is quite apparent that if Christ be the u Desire 
(even the unconscious desire) of all nations," then no 
nation can enjoy true and permanent prosperity except 
by receiving and honoring Him. The real doctrine 
of this Scripture is, that nothing can take the place 
of Christ. A nation may have wealth and intelli- 
gence, power and splendor, but if it reject His reign, 
" Ichabod" is written upon its glory. The nation or 
kingdom that will not serve Him shall perish. The 
Jews in their blindness cried, " We will not have this 
man to reign over us ;" and for eighteen centuries 
they have been without a country or an organized 
government. Other nations have refused Him their 
homage, and He has given them over to the tyranny 
of their own passions, to internal strife and foreign 
aggression. Can any Christian doubt that we have 
suffered because of our unfaithfulness to Christ, the 
Head of all principality and power? Because we 
have not sought and cherished Him as our great 
M Desire ;" have not been careful to guard His rights; 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations. 153 

have contemned His authority; have offered to our 
own wisdom and might the sacrifices which were due 
to Him alone? Never until we return to Him can 
we look for true peace and lasting prosperity. 

Again, if Christ be the " Desire of all nations," 
then the cause of Missions deserves our support as the 
great interest of earth. 

Two-thirds or three-fourths of the race are still 
sitting in darkness. They are longing and sighing 
for a Deliverer, and there is no Deliverer for them but 
Jesus of Nazareth. His name never fell upon their 
ears. But it is for Him they are yearning. Nor 
they only. All peoples, Christian as well as pagan, 
stand in equal need of Him : all desire Him. He 
alone can cure the world's maladies. He alone can 
bring salvation to the nations. It is our privilege to 
make Him known to them. This is our prime duty 
to them and to Him. A godlike service it is to min- 
ister such relief to our perishing fellow-creatures; to 
point them to One who can satisfy their restless 
cravings after happiness, and lift them up out of the 
depths of misery and crime to the dignity and fe- 
licity of sons of God. Can you deny the Missionary 
cause your sympathy, or be content with a meagre 
and reluctant support of it ? This cause must and 
will prosper. In the end it will achieve a glorious 
triumph. " The Desire of all nations" will one day 
be hailed by all nations as their Lord. " He shall 



IS4 Christy the Desire of all Nations. 



be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, 
even a morning without clouds." "The Gentiles 
shall come to His light, and kings to the brightness 
of His rising." " Men shall worship Him, every one 
from his place, even all the isles of the heathen." 
And in that day it will not much comfort you to re- 
flect that you took no part in helping on this glorious 
millennium. 

But our subject comes still nearer home. If Christ 
be " the Desire of all nations," what is He to us 
individually ? Is He the Desire of our hearts ? This 
question is vital. Heaven and hell hang upon it. 
In God's esteem, the test of character is not what we 
may be in race or color, in social position, in mental 
culture, in religious profession, but what we are 
Christ-ward. That we all have earnest and perma- 
nent desires which can be satisfied only in Him, has 
already been shown. But with us, unlike the heathen 
who have the mere light of nature to guide them, 
these desires must point consciously to Christ. We 
must desire Him in all His offices, not only as our 
Prophet to instruct, and our High-Priest to atone for 
us, but as our King, to set up His throne in our 
hearts, and put His gentle yoke upon our necks, and 
control our every act and word and thought. We 
must desire Him with a vehement and operative de- 
sire, — a desire which shall pervade the whole char- 
acter, and reveal itself in a faithful obedience to His 



Christ, the Desire of all Nations. 155 

commands, and the culture of all the graces He 
enjoins. We must desire Him with the feeling that 
He is the " one thing needful ; that He must be ours, 
and that to miss of Him would be a calamity for 
which the acquisition of " the whole world" would 
be no equivalent. 

If Christ be our " Desire" in some such way as 
this, we may prepare to rejoice with Him in the day 
when " all kings shall fall down before Him, and all 
nations serve Him." 

But if you are utter strangers to this feeling; if 
after having heard of Christ from your cradles up 
you still " see no beauty in Him that you should 
desire Him," what blindness must have settled upon 
your minds ! what ingratitude and obduracy have 
taken possession of your hearts ! Sad enough will 
it be if when you stand at His bar He shall have 
no desire {or you, — sad enough if the rejoicings with 
which you now hail the return of the Christmas 
Festival should terminate in endless, hopeless sorrow 
that you ever heard of a Saviour's birth ! 



GOD THE ONLY ADEQUATE PORTION 
OF THE SOUL. 



Psalm lxxiii. 25. 



" Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none 
upon ear tli that I desire beside TheeT 

The writer of this Psalm had been painfully per- 
plexed, as many persons are still, with the apparent 
incongruity between certain providential arrange- 
ments and the perfections of the Deity. He could 
not reconcile the prosperity of the wicked with the 
righteous sovereignty of God. But when he "came 
to the Sanctuary" and learned what was to be their 
"end;" when he found that all the inequalities of 
the present life would be adjusted hereafter; he was 
more than satisfied ; he was ashamed and humbled 
at his misgivings. He accounts it as a mercy that 
he had not been cast off for his unbelief and stu- 
pidity. And with a heart overflowing with grati- 
tude, he protests anew his confidence in the faith ful- 
S of God, and his entire devotion to His service. 
156 



God, the Portion of the Sou/. 1 5 7 

" Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and after- 
wards receive me to glory. Whom have I in 
heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth I 
desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth ; 
but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion 
forever." 

The theme presented in the text is, God the 

ONLY PROPER AND ADEQUATE PORTION OF THE SOUL ; 

a theme which it will require eternity to unfold, but 
which may well be a frequent, as it must be a 
profitable, subject of our meditations here. 

Ever since the apostasy the cry of mankind has 
been, "Who will show us any good?" In all ages, 
in all lands, with all tribes and all professions of 
men, the eager, restless, unsatisfied demand has 
been, " Who will show us any good ?" Our text 
supplies the only answer to this universal craving of 
humanity. 

1. God is the proper portion of the soul, because 
He is the only nnderived and absolute good. 

" Why callest thou me good?" said our Saviour 
to the young ruler: "None is good save One, that 
is God." His meaning was that God alone is good 
essentially and in Himself; and that none other is 
good in comparison with Him. In a subordinate 
sense, many of His rational creatures are good; all 
of them, indeed, of whom we have any knowledge, 
except man and the lost angels ; and man, as re- 

14 



158 God % the Portion of the Soul. 

Hewed, has a spark of goodness in him which will 
burn and shine forever. But all this is derived <rood- 
ness. As the planets glow with borrowed light, so 
men and angels are arrayed in reflected or trans- 
mitted holiness. Their purity is but the streams; 
God is the Fountain. Whatever of virtue and truth, 
of moral worth and spiritual beauty, there may be in 
any part of the universe, among our race or other 
races, all must be referred to Him as its source. 
Even those elevated traits, occasionally detected 
among the untutored heathen, the benevolent and 
manly qualities which elicit general admiration, are 
but scattered and diluted emanations from His good- 
ness, broken and feeble rays of the Sun of righteous- 
ness gleaming here and there amidst the depths of 
human depravity and misery. 

Nor are the highest forms of earthly goodness free 
from defect. None are wholly good. The loveliest 
characters have their frailties. Those who walk 
with God sometimes falter. The utmost that can be 
claimed for any of our race is, that they excel in 
certain graces; or that in the main they are assimi- 
lated to God and breathe the spirit of heaven. 

But His goodness is without a stain. It has no 
imperfection, and knows no abatement. Theirs may 
change. Even the angels are not in themselves 
indefectible. A part of them, once holy, have lost 
their holiness; and the same catastrophe might over- 



God, the Portion of the Soul. 159 

take the rest, were not the everlasting arms under- 
neath them. His excellence, however, is of the very- 
essence of His being: 

" He sits on no precarious throne, 
Nor borrows leave to be;" 

and His goodness partakes of the immutability of 
His nature : it can no more fail than He Himself can 
cease to exist. God is, therefore, the only underived 
and absolute good ; and as such, the proper portion 
of the soul. 

2. He is a good adapted to the nature and necessi- 
ties of the sotd. 

This needs no other proof than the fact that man 
was made originally in the Divine image; and what- 
ever changes may have occurred in his character 
and condition, his nature is unchanged. A sick 
man is still a man ; and a soul, dislocated and ener- 
vated by sin, is still a soul. As such it can find its 
supreme happiness only in God. Like seeks its like. 
A spiritual being must have a spiritual portion. 
While allied to a sentient, physical frame-work, and 
the tenant of a material world, its tastes and pursuits 
will be in keeping with its circumstances. But its in- 
herent, constitutional desires, those which pertain to 
it equally in the body and out of the body, can never 
find their full gratification in objects of sense. These 
desires demand a spiritual good. With the renewed 



160 Gody the Portion of the Soul. 



soul they demand a portion that is holy as well as 
spiritual. Such a soul can no more be satisfied with 
any of the common objects of pursuit among men 
than the body can be nourished upon sentiment and 
fancy. Its craving for something radically different 
in kind, as well as higher and better, springs neither 
from caprice nor education, but from the organic 
law of its being. The Creator has so constituted us 
that we can find true peace and content only in 
Himself. In the ever-increasing knowledge of God, 
and an ever-growing conformity to God, the soul 
is satisfied. This is the nourishment for which it 
yearns ; and here it possesses the only portion 
which can cure it of its restlessness. 

Were it needful, we might cite on this point the 
involuntary testimony of men of the world. The 
coveted wealth is secured ; the hard-earned chaplet 
is won ; but there is a void within still, a conscious 
void which these can neither appease nor beguile. 
There is no solid peace for the soul until it is 
able to say, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? 
And there is none upon earth that I desire beside 
Thee." 

3. This will be further evident from considering 
that God is an infinite good. 

It may seem strong language, but humble as is 
the place assigned to man in the scale of intelligent 
beings, nothing short of an infinite good can fully 



God, the Portion of the Soul. 161 

meet the exigencies of his nature. Of this we have 
a clear intimation in the familiar fact just adverted 
to, the sense of insufficiency which attaches to all 
human pursuits. " All things are full of labor: man 
cannot utter it : the eye is not satisfied with seeing, 
nor the ear filled with hearing." " He that loveth 
silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that 
loveth abundance with increase." Undoubtedly 
there is enough in the objects and interests of this 
life to stimulate our passions and stir us up to a 
pleasurable activity; and he must be lacking either 
in penetration or in candor who can deny that there 
is a great deal of enjoyment and, if you will, of hap- 
piness derived from mere earthly avocations and 
possessions. But this is quite compatible with the 
statement that worldly prosperity is very often at- 
tended with a secret satiety and disgust; and cer- 
tainly with the doctrine that there is nothing in the 
aims and occupations of this life which could afford 
the soul durable and complete satisfaction. If under 
the most propitious circumstances the confession is 
often extorted from the pampered children of for- 
tune which fell from the lips of the most accom- 
plished and powerful potentate of his age, " Vanity 
of vanities, all is vanity!" how apparent must it be 
that the soul will demand for its eternal dowry some 
portion transcending in extent and value all that this 
world has to offer ! Its rational and moral powers, 

14* 



i 62 God % the For lion of the Soul. 



even when matured with the highest culture and 
carried up to the standard of a Newton or a Bacon, 
are still in their infancy in this life. The process of 
development and expansion, commenced here, must 
go on with their being. The loftiest attainments 
made on earth will one day seem as the scanty rudi- 
ments of the nursery appeared to them at death. 
And it is reasonable to presume that they will ad- 
vance in the acquisition of knowledge until they 
soar beyond the successive gradations which now 
mark the sublime endowments of the loftiest angels. 
It will not do to fix limits to the possible acquisi- 
tions of an intelligence like the human soul. The 
authoritative announcement that a period might 
come, though millions of ages distant, when it 
would reach the extreme boundary of knowledge 
and know all that ever could be known, would ex- 
cite emotions of surprise and mortification even now 
in every breast which has awoke to the conscious- 
ness of its powers. While there is nothing with 
which we are more profoundly impressed than our 
inability to compass the great ocean of truth that is 
spread out before us, and especially to sound the 
depths of the Divine Nature, we would not, for 
worlds upon worlds, have it otherwise. We require 
an illimitable, incomprehensible God. 

" Could we conceive Him, God He could not be; 
Or He not God, or we could not he men." 



God, the Portion of the Soul. 163 

The mind loves to lose itself in the infinitude of His 
being. And in this very attribute devotion finds 
one of its chief supports. Who that has emerged 
from the foul degeneracy of paganism could worship 
a god capable of being described or conceived? 
The moment a pretended deity is brought within 
the sweep of our measuring lines, he ceases to be a 
deity to us. The sentiment of reverence palsies be- 
fore a finite god. And if such a god were on the 
throne, there would be no anthems in heaven. 

But no such Being fills the throne. " Behold God 
is great and we know Him not, neither can the num- 
ber of His years be searched out." " The Lord is a 
great God, and a great King above all gods.'' "The 
great, the mighty God, the Lord of Hosts is His 
name, great in counsel and mighty in work." " Great 
is our God, and of great power : His understanding 
is infinite." " Canst thou by searching find out God? 
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? 
It is as high as heaven ; what canst thou do ? Deeper 
than hell ; what canst thou know ?" 

"Alone, Invisible, Immortal One ! 

What know we more 
Of Thee, what need to know, than thou hast taught, 
And bid'st us still repeat at morn and even ? 
God ! Everlasting Father ! Holy One ! 
Our God, our Father, our Eternal All ! 
Source whence we came, and whither we return ; 
Who made our spirits, who our bodies made, 



164 God, the Portion of the Soul. 

Who made the heaven, who made the flowery land, 
Who made all made, who orders, governs all; 
Who walks upon the wind, who holds the wave 
In hollow of Thy hand; whom thunders wait, 
Whom tempests serve, whom flaming fires obey; 
Who guides the circuit of the endless years, 
And sit'st on high and mak'st creation's top 
Thy footstool, and behold'st below Thee, all — 
All nought, all less than nought, and vanity." * 

Here is a God we can adore. Here the intense 
longings of the soul are satisfied. In this august, 
ever-present, all-seeing, all-controlling Divinity, our 
minds repose with the assurance that His nature 
is not only suited to our nature, but absolutely 
boundless and unsearchable. As we meditate upon 
His perfections, our contemplations are disturbed by 
no intrusive fear that a period may arrive when we 
shall have explored every part of His being, and 
M found out the Almighty unto perfection." Our 
confidence is as firm as it is joyful, that the infinite 
disparity there is between His being and our own 
will never be lessened; and that whatever attain- 
ments we may make in knowledge, in holiness, or 
in happiness, we shall not have advanced a single 
step towards exhausting the fulness of the God- 
head. 

4. This of course implies that God is an eternal 

* Pollock, B. vi. 



God, the Portion of the Son/. 165 

good, — which may be mentioned as another proof 
that He is the only adequate portion for the soul. 

However suitable a possession might be to our 
capacities, or however measureless in its extent, it 
would be no fit heritage for us unless it were immor- 
tal. We need a portion as indestructible as we are 
ourselves. So reason and revelation unite in teach- 
ing. And the fatal mistake which men make, lies in 
overlooking this. What are riches and honors as an 
endowment for the soul? "As he came forth from 
his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he 
came, and shall take nothing of his labor which he 
may carry away in his hand." Is Dives the better 
off now for his purple and fine linen ? Is Belshazzar 
the better off for his throne and diadem ? There is 
a writing upon the wall over against all this world's 
pageantry ; but men's eyes are holden, and they do 
not see it. The instant the silver cord is loosed and 
the golden bowl broken, they have to see it. Then 
the appalling discovery is forced upon them that they 
are portionless forever ! But the stroke which severs 
them from their portion consummates the investi- 
ture of the Christian with his. As the gifts and call- 
ing of God are without repentance (or change of 
mind), so when He says to a creature, " I will be thy 
God," it is an irreversible and inalienable grant. He 
will not annul it, and no other can. It is written in 
the bond, " I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." 



1 66 God, the Portion of the Soul. 



And the humblest believer may use those majestic 
words, in comparison with which all the titles and 
demesnes of royalty are but gilded nothings, "This 
God is our God for ever and ever." 

5. As the crowning argument to show that God is 
the proper portion of the soul, it may be added that 
He is a most comprehensive good. 

Where He gives Himself, He gives every other 
good. The very first line of the Christian's charter, 
44 I will be thy God," comprises all that follows. It 
is not necessary to prove that a wise and affectionate 
father will feed and clothe and educate his children. 
Can our Father in heaven do less? Having the 
ability, He must also have the disposition, to do 
everything for them which their welfare may demand. 
An earthly parent may err in judgment, or he may 
lack the means to accomplish his purposes ; but 
neither of these contingencies can occur with God. 
Guided by infinite wisdom arid goodness, and with 
the resources of the universe at His command, He 
can never fail to do for His people just what their 
happiness may require. In this sense we are to un- 
derstand that saying of the apostle, "All things are 
yours." Tested by a mere earthly standard, this 
might be thought a very random affirmation; the 
more so as he has said in the same Epistle, 4< not 
many wise, not many mighty, not many noble are 
called; but God has chosen" for His people the 



God, the Portion of the Soul. 167 

" foolish," the "base," and the " weak" of this world. 
But the same apostle has again described these poor 
disciples, himself among them, as " having nothing, 
and yet possessing all things." To those who know 
anything of the Scriptures the paradox is sufficiently 
intelligible. God is the only Source and Giver alike 
of temporal and spiritual blessings. These He be- 
stows upon His people in the manner and measure 
best adapted to their circumstances. Whether riches 
or poverty or a competence be best for them ; whether 
health or sickness ; whether a tranquil or a troubled 
life ; whether obscurity or renown ; where they are 
to live and what they are to do ; their successes and 
reverses ; their joys and sorrows ; all these are mat- 
ters for Him to dispose. Enough that He has en- 
gaged never to leave nor forsake them; to make all 
things work together for their good ; to bring them 
off more than conquerors over sin and death ; and 
to receive them at length into His everlasting glory. 
This munificent dowry belongs to every child of God. 
And we claim for the believer's portion, therefore, 
the pre-eminent distinction, that it comprises what- 
ever of real good there may be in the various objects 
other men covet, and, superadded to this, a glorious 
inheritance in reversion, which is " incorruptible, 
undefiled, and that fadeth not away." 

I have thus endeavored to illustrate the truth that 



i 6S God, the Portion of the Soul. 



God is the only proper and adequate portion of the 
soul, by showing that Me is the only underived and 

absolute good ; a good adapted to the necessities of our 
spiritual nature; an infinite good; an eternal good ; 
and a most comprehensive good. 

The Psalmist, it will be observed, does more than 
affirm that God is his portion. " Whom have I in 
heaven but Thee ? And there is none upon earth 
that I desire beside Thee." He gives intensity to 
the averment by throwing it into this comparative 
form, and protesting his love to God above his affec- 
tion for any creature in heaven or on earth. This 
could not be designed as any disparagement either 
of the pious dead or of the living. Of the personal 
history of the writer of the Psalm (Asaph) we know 
very little. But we cannot err in supposing that he 
had his earthly attachments and friendships; and 
that there were many among the ransomed in glory 
whose names were sacred to him, and with whom 
he was hoping to be one day united. But with him 
every other passion was subordinated to that high- 
est and best of all affections, love to God. Heaven 
was heaven to him because it was the abode of 
God. And earth was tolerable or, as might be, 
joyful to him because it was part of God's domain, 
and he was kept here to do or to suffer God's 
holy will. It was the consideration of God in one 
or another aspect which determined his principles, 



God, the Portion of the Soul. 1 69 

swayed his affections, and gave tone to his whole 
character. 

That it becomes every one to cultivate this spirit 
must be too apparent to require argument. As God 
is the only adequate portion of the soul, so His 
right to our supreme veneration and homage is 
plenary and irrefragable. This right is inseparable 
from the relations He sustains to us. As our Cre- 
ator, Preserver, Governor, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, 
He has a paramount title to our love and obedience; 
a title so strong that no conceivable combination of 
circumstances could make it stronger. There may 
be other sovereigns or magistrates to whom we owe 
fealty ; but no earthly power may divide the alle- 
giance we owe to God. We may have other benefac- 
tors ; but none to compare with God. And other 
friends; but none so worthy of our affection as God. 
Accordingly, it is our sentiments God-ward which 
determine our moral character and condition. If 
we are radically wrong here we are wrong every- 
where. No benevolence towards our fellow-crea- 
tures can atone for the want of supreme love to the 
Creator. No brilliant example of integrity and phi- 
lanthropy can compensate for the absence of piety 
towards God. " Though I bestow all my goods to 
feed the poor, and though I give my body to be 
burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing." 
Without tin's element the mainspring of all godli- 

15 



170 God % the Portion of the Soul. 

ness, the very foundation of personal religion, is 
wanting. There may be a character adorned with 
many attractive qualities; but it is still of the "earth, 
earthy/ 1 and must follow the law which controls the 
destiny of all things earthly. Until God is en- 
throned in the heart to the exclusion of every rival, 
a fatal defect must attach to its best virtues and per- 
formances. The great lesson to be learned, the de- 
cisive victory to be won, is this : " Whom have I in 
heaven but Thee ? And there is none upon earth 
that I desire beside Thee." Until this principle is 
lodged in the soul, whatever we may be in the eyes 
of men, we are to Him who looks upon the heart 
only as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. 

Nor are other arguments wanting to show the im- 
portance of cultivating this spirit. Nothing short of 
this can, in an equal degree, impart stability of char- 
acter and peace of mind. We are for the most part 
the sport of vagrant passions or of capricious cir- 
cumstances. We find ourselves among currents we 
cannot control. If we lay up our treasure here, we 
are vexed with the loss or harassed with the care 
of it. If we place our affections here, they may at 
any moment be blighted. The wisest plans may 
miscarry. The surest props may fail us. Life is with 
most persons a succession of undesirable changes. 
God alone is sufficient to fill our capacities. He only, 
amidst all fluctuations, is immutable. He is both 



God, the Portion of the Soul. 171 

able and willing to keep that which is committed to 
Him. " Who is God save the Lord? And who is 
a Rock save our God ?" " He will ever be mindful 
of His covenant." " Hath He said, and shall He 
not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not 
make it good ?" " Not one thing hath failed [nor 
ever shall fail] of all the good things which the Lord 
hath spoken concerning Israel." 

This supplies the Refuge we all need. Helpless, 
wayward, self-confident, corruption within and temp- 
tation without, exposed to disease and hastening to 
the tomb, how obvious is the duty, how unspeak- 
able the privilege, of committing our concerns into 
His hands, and taking Him as our portion ! How 
manifest is it that we should hold all earthly bonds 
as secondary to the ties which bind us to God, and 
even anticipate heaven chiefly as His dwelling- 
place! And yet how remiss we are in a duty so 
palpable and so urgent ! Three great hinderances 
retard us. 

(1) There is the strength of sin. The lesson we 
have to master is one at which the carnal mind re- 
volts. " Whom have I in earth or heaven but Thee ?" 
This is altogether alien from flesh and blood; and it 
comes in conflict with the depravity which lingers in 
every renewed heart. The question still is, " Who 
shall reign ?" And although the ultimate issue is 
not doubtful, an incessant and painful struggle must 



i 7 2 God, the Portion of the Saul. 



be kept up in order to maintain the authority of 
God's law in the soul. 

(2) There is the power of sense. We are required 
to love an unseen God, a Being whose spiritual na- 
ture baffles our conceptions. We are required to 
love Him supremely and constantly; to account His 
favor as our greatest blessing; and to choose His 
glory above every other aim and interest. As in 
rivalry with these lofty and apparently impracticable 
demands, numerous objects solicit our hearts, and 
make their appeal where we are most accessible, — 
to our senses. Tenants of a material world, im- 
mersed in material pursuits and enjoyments, and so 
constituted that these objects must exert a powerful 
influence upon us, no feeble or transient effort can 
disengage us from their fascinations and bind us 
with a grateful and confiding loyalty to the throne 
of the invisible Jehovah. Not until the Omnipotent 
Spirit has new-created us, and implanted in our 
breasts a divine faith in Jesus Christ, can we thus re- 
place the things which are seen with the things that 
are unseen. And even then, after this mighty trans- 
formation has been wrought, and the soul has been 
indissolubly united to the Saviour, there is a per- 
petual tendency to fall back under the dominion of 
sense which no human energy is able to withstand. 
He who begins the work must consummate it. Un- 
der His guidance, and in His strength, the feeblest 



God, the Portion of the Soul. 173 

believer may, in the end, be able to enter with a 
true sympathy into the feelings of the Psalmist, and 
exclaim, " Whom have I in earth or heaven but 
Thee?" 

(3) There is the force of ear tidy affection. "It is 
an awful and an arduous thing to root out every 
affection for earthly things, so as to live for another 
world." So wrote that man of God, Henry Martyn, 
in India, more than a half-century ago ; and they 
know little of Christianity in its experimental power 
who cannot verify the remark. With Martyn it was 
a sentiment drawn from the profoundest and most 
sacred depths of his experience. Few persons have 
passed through so fearful a trial as he did, in having 
" every affection for earthly things" brought into 
captivity to the obedience of Christ. I speak not 
now of the passions to which most men are more 
or less enslaved, and which are justly reckoned as 
among the chief barriers to salvation. Avarice, am- 
bition, sensual pleasure, literature, — these slay their 
thousands and their tens of thousands. But it is not 
these only that intercept the soul's communion with 
God, and make it so hard to say, " Whom have I but 
Thee?" The affections become snares to us. They 
go out, not perhaps after forbidden objects, but with 
a forbidden vehemence. There is a practical forget- 
fulness of that monition, " Whoso loveth father or 
mother more than me is not worthy of me ; and 

15* 



174 Gody the Portion of the Soul. 

whoso loveth son or daughter more than me is not 
worthy of me." The group that sit around our 
tables, the friends who have grown upon our esteem 
through a long and cherished intercourse, and by a 
mutual fellowship in the trials of life, insensibly be- 
guile our affections, and usurp a place to which they 
have no claim. 

" Our dearest joys and nearest friends, 
The partners of our blood, 
How they divide our wavering minds, 
And leave but half for God!" 

This is true no less of the dead than of the living. 
The Psalmist could say, " Whom have I in heaven 
but Thee ?" And this must be the feeling of every 
Christian in his better moments. His purest and 
strongest aspirations will soar to God. Heaven will 
present itself to his mind as the habitation of God. 
And to be with God and like God will fill up his 
conceptions of the perfect felicity he is anticipating. 
But there are others in heaven, too, — those whom 
we loved in life and still love in death, — nay, who 
still live in our heart of hearts, and will live there 
forever. It must add to the attractions of heaven 
that some of our costliest jewels are garnered there. 
But is this sentiment always subordinate — as it 
should be? Even the sainted dead must not be 
permitted to come in between our souls and God. 



God, the Portion of the Soul. 175 

It is their feeling, now that they stand and adore 
before the throne, " Whom have I in heaven but 
Thee?" and it should be our feeling too. 

u And there is none upon earth that I desire be- 
side Thee." It is their conscious inability to say 
this ; the ascendency they have allowed their earthly 
attachments to acquire, and the inroads which earthly 
idols (if I may so speak) have made upon their spir-* 
itual affections, which chain very many Christians to 
the world, and deprive them of the true enjoyment 
of religion. 

The strength of sin; the power of sense; the force 
of natural affection ; — these are the hinderances 
which clog our upward flight, and forbid our ex- 
claiming in rapture, " Whom have I in earth or 
heaven but Thee ?" 

It is a supposable case, that the prevalent feeling 
with no small portion of those present, while listen- 
ing to this discourse, may have been, " How little 
does that text express my state of mind ! When I 
think of heaven at all, my mind dwells far more upon 
its society, its employments, and its happiness, than 
upon God. And as to earth, instead of saying, 
* There is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee/ 
there are numerous objects on which my affections 
are fastened, in some cases, I fear, with an intensity 
which almost precludes the love of God." 



176 God x the Portion of the Soul. 

If it be thus with you, does it never occur to you 
that the indisposition to think of God, the unwilling- 
ness to take Him as one's portion, must betoken a 
sad derangement of the moral condition of the soul? 
And is there no cause for alarm where one is con- 
scious of setting the creature above the Creator, and 
of using the gifts of God every hour without any 
suitable acknowledgment of the Giver? 

We all hope to get to heaven. But the best prep- 
aration for heaven, and the only proper pledge of it, 
lies in the culture of the spirit which reigns there; 
and this is the spirit we have been delineating. To 
the august inhabitants of that world, from the loftiest 
seraph down to the redeemed infant which is lisping 
its praises before the throne, God is all in all. 
How can we ever join them unless He is "all in all" 
to us ? Nay, without this how can we make the 
most of the present life ? We need— we must have 
— something substantial and lasting; and this the 
world has not to give. " The depth saith, ' It is not 
in me ;' and the sea saith, ' It is not with me/ It 
cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be 
weighed for the price thereof. It cannot be valued 
with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or 
the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot equal 
it, and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of 
fine gold." Even this is but a feeble statement of 
the case. To deny to gold and silver, the splendor 



God, the Portion of the Soul. 177 

and honors of earth, any capacity to satisfy the crav- 
ings of the soul, may reach the case of the multi- 
tude ; but there are those whom it will not reach. 
These are persons of a finer mould, of a noble culture, 
of generous susceptibilities, and of warm affections. 
They are in no danger of becoming idolaters of 
mammon. They have no ambition to shine before 
the world. But they must have something to love. 
Their home is in the empire of the heart. Love is 
the element they breathe, and they cannot be happy 
without it. And what is the common allotment of 
these persons ? I will not say a heritage of sorrow, 
because that might be going too far. But I will say 
that, while they have more true enjoyment of life 
than the masses around them, while the happiness 
they experience is immeasurably superior to that 
derived from the mere acquisition of riches or re- 
nown, they are certain to encounter frequent and 
painful trials. Those pure affections which infold 
them as in robes of light and loveliness, will go out 
in quest of congenial objects. It may be a wife or 
husband. It may be a group of children. It may 
be one or two chosen friends ; — or all of these com- 
bined. But whatever the objects, they are loved, 
and doted on, and clung to with a fondness and a 
tenacity which makes them, as it were, a part of 
their being. If this could last, there were less room 
for our moral. But it cannot last: 



i ;S God, the Portion of the Soul. 

" There is no union here of hearts 
That finds not here an end." 

By and by the blow falls ; and it falls with a crush- 
ing weight. It is as when a storm sweeps through 
a vineyard and prostrates the trellises. Every prop 
that is snapt asunder carries down its load of luxu- 
riant, lacerated vines. And so, after one of these 
strokes, you not only miss a familiar form, but you 
find the affections which clustered around and decor- 
ated it, overthrown with their support, and scattered, 
wounded and bleeding, over the ground. 

I speak, doubtless, to many a mourner whose sad 
experience has illustrated this. And it belongs so 
essentially to the very nature and design of the dis- 
pensation under which we live, that we cannot expect 
to elude it. It must be so, that if we ourselves sur- 
vive we shall lose the objects of our earthly love. 
We must follow them to the grave, or they us ; and 
they or we must know what this blight of the heart's 
best affections is. What, then, is our resource? What 
the voice of wisdom and of duty? Most obviously 
to choose a portion that will not fail us ; to set our 
affections where no blight can reach them ; to fasten 
our hopes upon the only Being who will never dis- 
appoint us. 

Ye children of sorrow, who mourn over the graves 
of your loved ones; whose hearts and homes are 
desolate ; listen to the language of the Psalmist, and 



God, the Portion of the Soul. 179 

pray for strength to make it your own : " Whom 
have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon 
earth that I desire beside Thee." Here is One whom 
you may love without any danger of idolatry. Here 
is One in whom you may confide with an assurance 
that your trust will never deceive you. Your streams 
are dried up : come to the Fountain. Creature- 
comforts have failed you : come to the Creator. 
Earth is a cheerless void ; but Heaven is full. With 
an humble trust in the Redeemer as your only Hope, 
commit yourselves to God. Take Him as your " all 
in all." And then your peace will flow as a river; 
the inevitable sorrows of life will bring their consola- 
tions with them ; and death, at length, in bringing 
you to your God, will restore to you those who are 

" Not lost, but gone before !" 



THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF RE- 
WARDS. 



Matthew x. 41. 



" He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, 
shall receive a prophet's rezvard ; and he that re- 
ceiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous 
nian, shall receive a righteous man's reward!' 

This passage occurs in the charge our Saviour 
addressed to the twelve, on sending them forth upon 
their first mission. He had apprised them of the 
hardships and perils of their work. But He would 
also hold out its encouragements. These, it will be 
seen, were enough to counterpoise any possible dan- 
gers to which they might be exposed. For He 
winds up a series of remarkable promises with these 
words of lofty and generous cheer, even for those 
who might show any kindness to His servants, — im- 
plying what was in reserve for his servants themselves: 
M He that receiveth you/' etc., as if He had said : " He 
180 



The Scripture Doctrine of Rezvards. 181 

that entertains you does in effect entertain me, whose 
ministers you are ; and he that entertains me does 
also entertain Him that sent me; and my Heavenly 
Father will regard it as done to Himself. He that 
hospitably entertains a prophet (intending, probably 
by this title, the apostles) in the name of a prophet, 
i.e., with a pious regard to the office he bears, shall 
receive the reward of a prophet himself, or a reward 
proportionable to the worth of the person he shelters 
and accommodates in a time of danger and difficulty ; 
and he that entertains (any) righteous man, in the 
name of a righteous man, or with a cordial regard to 
the virtues of his character, shall himself receive the 
reward of a righteous man." 

There are various aspects in which this promise 
might be viewed. I propose to make it the founda- 
tion of some remarks upon the Scripture doctrine of 
Rewards. Here and elsewhere the future happiness 
of the saints is styled a " reward." u Love ye your 
enemies and do good and lend, hoping for nothing 
again, and your reward shall be great, and ye shall 
be called the children of the Highest." "Every 
man shall receive his own reward according to his 
own labor." " If any man's work abide, he shall re- 
ceive a reward." u Let no man beguile you of your 
reward." " Thy Father which sccth in secret shall 
reward thee openly." 

In any other book, the habitual use of language of 



1 82 The Scrip hire Doctrine of Rewards. 

this sort would be taken to imply the idea of per- 
sonal merit on the part of the persons spoken of. 
The honors conferred upon them would be simply 
their due desert, — what they had earned by their ser- 
vices. We need not go beyond the instincts of the 
renewed heart to learn that the language can have 
no such meaning here. No real Christian feels that 
he has any merit in the sight of his Maker. So far 
from it, the further he advances in the Divine life, 
the more deeply does he realize his own depravity 
and helplessness. 

In general it may be observed, that no creature 
can claim a reward at the hands of God for obeying 
His commands. Obedience is the prime law of his 
being. Whether man or seraph, the question of rank 
is of no moment, his first obligation is to love and 
serve the Creator with all his powers. So long as he 
does this, the justice and goodness of God would in- 
sure him the continuance of the Divine favor, and of 
the happiness it carries with it. But it would not 
entitle him to any further remuneration. He has 
simply performed his duty. How should this entitle 
him to a reward ? 

We are here assuming a case of perfect obedience. 
If it be asked whether Adam would have received 
no reward in the event of his remaining steadfast, 
we may answer affirmatively without contravening 
the principle. For Adam was not merely placed 



The Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 183 

under the Divine law. God was pleased to enter 
into a " covenant" with him, in which He graciously 
offered and promised to crown his obedience with a 
reward, even the eternal life of himself and his pos- 
terity. In the absence of any compact, no creature 
could claim a future reward for present obedience, 
even though that obedience were complete. How 
much stronger the case when the obedience is alto- 
gether defective ; when, instead of being conformed 
to the law in thought, word, and deed, it is fissured 
and defiled with sin in every direction ? Who can 
talk of merit, when he cannot point to an hour of 
his life which could bear the test of the law and 
the testimony ? when the impurity which cleaves 
to his best services, even to his prayers and praises, 
makes them unfit to present to a holy God ? With 
reason, therefore, do the Scriptures exclude all sen- 
timent of personal merit from the entire scheme of 
salvation. 

Whence, then, comes the idea of " reward" which 
meets us so often in the New Testament, and what 
is its purport ? I answer, it comes from the Media- 
tion of Christ, and has respect to His merit, not ours. 
Our Heavenly Father saw fit in His infinite mercy 
to rescue man from the effects of the great apos- 
tasy. Of His own love and pity He entered into 
another covenant, the covenant of grace, in which 
He provided for the redemption of sinners through 



184 The Scripture Doctrine of Rcivards. 

the substitution of I lis only-begotten Son. The Sa- 
viour came into our world and fulfilled the stipula- 
tions of this covenant. He bore our sins. He died 
the just for the unjust. He obeyed and suffered in 
the room and stead of His people. It was a volun- 
tary obedience and humiliation. It was complete. 
It was appointed and accepted of the Father. Here 
is merit — infinite merit. For upon every part of His 
work, whether of action or of passion, there is im- 
pressed the dignity and worth of the Godhead. And 
this resolves the problem respecting the rewards of 
Scripture. For on the ground of Christ's obedience, 
the Father not only pardons those who trust in 
Him, but also accepts and recompenses their imper- 
fect services. From no merit in themselves, but 
purely from the boundless merit of their Redeemer, 
everything they do or attempt to do for the cause 
of Christ receives a gracious remuneration. " It 
does not consist with the honor of the majesty of 
the King of heaven and earth to accept of anything 
from a condemned malefactor, condemned by the 
justice of His own holy law, till that condemnation 
be removed." " But being ' accepted in the Be- 
loved,' our services become impregnated, as it were, 
with His worthiness; our petitions are offered with 
the 'much incense' of His intercession; and both 
are treated in a sort as though they were His. In 
approving the services of believers, God approves 



The Scripture Doctrine of Rezvards. 185 

of the obedience and sacrifice of His Son, of which 
they are the fruits ; and in rewarding them, con- 
tinues to reward Him, or to express his well- 
pleasedness in His mediation. ,, * 

This view harmonizes all the utterances of the 
Bible on this interesting subject. It vindicates the 
fundamental truth that salvation is, from first to last, 
of free and sovereign grace. It " hides pride" from 
man by affirming the imperfection and sin of his 
very best performances, even at his highest stage of 
Christian culture. At the same time, by making 
obedience the test of faith and love, it guards the 
doctrine from profane license, while it holds out 
the noblest encouragement to fidelity. It illustrates 
the ineffable value which attaches to the suretyship 
of our Saviour. And it presents the ever-blessed 
God to us in the character of a most indulgent 
and munificent Father, who stoops to notice and to 
reward the humblest offices of His children, even 
down to the giving of a cup of cold water to a dis- 
ciple. Such a doctrine carries with it its divine cre- 
dentials. We need not scruple to receive it as the 
true scriptural idea of rewards. 

But there is a further question suggested by the 
text, and glanced at in numerous other passages of 
Scripture, viz., whether there be any diversity in the 

* Andrew Fuller. 
16* 



1 86 The Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 

rewards of the righteous. A familiar mode of stating 
the point is this: Arc there different degrees in 
glory, or will the ransomed all inherit the same 
measure of honor and blessedness? And if their 
allotments vary, by what rule are they apportioned ? 
These are topics which must have engaged the atten- 
tion of every thoughtful reader of the Bible. They 
come home to every one's heart. Let us reflect 
upon them for a little. 

The text appears to make a distinction between 
the reward of a " prophet" and that of a " righteous 
man;" or between a faithful teacher of religion and 
any simply devout believer. Other testimonies, as 
we shall see, point in the same direction. But the 
doctrine of a gradation in the degrees of glory 
awarded to the ransomed, has not commanded the 
universal assent of the Church. It is proper that 
the arguments on the negative side should be put 
briefly before you. 

The people of God (it has been alleged) are loved 
by Him with the same love: they are not loved one 
sooner than another, for they are all loved with an 
everlasting love; nor one more than another, for 
there are no degrees in the love of God. They are 
all chosen together in Christ before the foundation 
of the world, and are equally interested in the same 
covenant of grace, which is an everlasting one. 
They are equally redeemed by the same precious 



The Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 187 

blood, and justified by the same righteousness. 
They are equally the sons of God, being predesti- 
nated to the same adoption of children ; and, being 
children, are alike heirs of God and joint heirs with 
Jesus Christ. They are also exalted to the same 
rank and dignity, being made kings and priests unto 
God. Added to this, their future glory is frequently 
expressed by words of the singular number, imply- 
ing that all have an equal share in it, as an inherit- 
ance, a city, a kingdom, a crown of righteousness, 
and the like.* On these and similar grounds, it is 
contended, there can be no degrees in the future 
glory of the redeemed. The argument, it must be 
admitted, is not without its force. I shall not exam- 
ine it in detail, but content myself with suggesting a 
few of the considerations which go to establish the 
opposite view. 

And first, the doctrine of a diversity of degrees in 
the heavenly glory, approves itself to the conscioiiS7iess 
of the renewed heart. This is not urged as decisive 
of the question ; but it is not to be contemned. 
God's people are taught of the Spirit. There is a 
strong presumption in favor of the truth of any senti- 
ment which commands their general assent. And it 
cannot be doubted that they concur in the proposi- 
tion we are dealing with, — unless they have become 



* Gill's Divinity. 



1 88 Tlie Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 

perplexed by adverse arguments which they have 
not, for the time, been able to answer. The intui- 
tions of the Christian heart would decide that there 
should and must be a difference between the reward 
bestowed upon men like Abraham and Moses and 
Paul and John, and the unknown disciples of their 
respective eras ; between the self-denying missionary 
who devotes his life to the conversion of the heathen, 
and the poor pagan whom he is instrumental in lead- 
ing to the Saviour. While conceding, as every be- 
liever from " pious Abel" down would have done, 
that no one has ever had the least claim to a reward 
as a matter of personal desert, our sense of equity 
demands that the rewards which abounding grace 
has purposed to confer, shall embrace some recogni- 
tion of the immense disparity, both of labor and sac- 
rifice, which distinguishes believers here. It gratifies 
the best susceptibilities of our nature to reflect that 
the Christians whose shining characters and illustri- 
ous lives have done so much for the well-being of 
our race, are one day to receive a corresponding 
award from the hands of their and our Master. 
Who would have it otherwise? Who that is sure 
of heaven himself would not be conscious of a feel- 
ing of disappointment if he were told that men like 
Luther and Ridley and Latimer and Edwards and 
Martyn were to have nothing in their reward to dis- 
tinguish it from the acknowledgment conceded to 



The Scrip Here Doctrine of Rewards. 189 

the meagre service he is rendering to his Lord ? 
Who does not feel that there should be something 
there to mark the disparity which prevails among 
the Christians we meet every day here ; which sepa^ 
rates, in the same congregation, those who maintain 
a close walk with God, from those who keep so near 
the border-line between the Church and the world 
that it requires a large charity to believe they have 
ever crossed that line? It is certainly an intui- 
tive conviction with us that some regard will be had 
to this principle in the distribution of the heavenly 
rewards. This conviction derives confirmation from 
various passages of Scripture, as when our Saviour 
promises the twelve that they shall "sit with Him 
on thrones, judging the twelves tribes of Israel;" 
and when He speaks of the privilege of sitting down 
with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in His kingdom; 
and also in that beautiful description of Daniel, 
" They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of 
the firmament; and they that turn many to right- 
eousness as the stars for ever and ever." It is not, 
however, quite certain whether the second clause in 
this verse be anything more than an iteration of the 
idea expressed in the first clause, as demanded by 
the law of parallelism upon which the Hebrew 
poetry is usually constructed. If the meaning be 
carried further in the second part (and so most 
readers understand the words), then the verse yields 



1 90 TJic Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 



a very explicit testimony to the doctrine of a diver- 
sity of degrees in glory. 

But there is a different line of argument which 
must be deemed decisive of this question. We have 
thus far been speaking of heaven simply as a place, 
— a city, — a country, — an empire, — with God for its 
Sovereign. Like other sovereigns, He recognizes 
the services of His people, and confers on them 
suitable rewards, by assigning one to this post of 
honor, another to that; and distributing testimoni- 
als after the manner of earthly princes in awarding 
medals, badges, and titles, to meritorious subjects. 
We need not exclude this idea as absolutely un- 
scriptural. Rather must we believe that the " Judge 
of all" will mark His approval of superior fidelity 
on the part of His servants by bestowing upon 
them outward and visible tokens of His favor. But 
this is not the essential idea of the heavenly glory. 
It is only necessary to consider what heaven is 
to perceive that there must be degrees in that 
glory. 

For heaven, though unquestionably a place, is no 
less a state. Simply to be in that place is not to be 
in heaven, — i.e. y is not to enjoy the happiness of 
heaven. The moment the angels sinned, heaven 
ceased to be heaven to them. Could an uncon- 
verted sinner be taken there, it would be no heaven 
to him. 



The Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 191 

" The mind is its own place, and in itself 

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." 

The happiness of the ransomed will depend less 
upon the particular situation they may fill, or any 
outward decorations, than upon their own characters 
and employments, and the reciprocal adaptation be- 
tween the two. And the character of the saved is a 
character formed here. The principle is one and 
the same, in grace and in glory. There is no 
change in identity ; no suspension of the mental 
functions; no oblivion of the earthly life. It is the 
same disciple that believed and loved and prayed 
and toiled and suffered for his Master here, who 
goes up to worship and praise Him there. And 
unless there be an absolute oneness in the experi- 
ence, the labors, and the attainments of believers in 
this world, there must be an inequality in their 
measures of happiness in that world. 

We may take the first act in that new and sublime 
career upon which they are to enter. To the myr- 
iads assembled at His right hand in the judgment 
the Saviour will say, " Come ye blessed of my Father, 
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world. For I was an hungered, and ye 
gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : 
I was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye 
clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in 
prison, and ye came unto me." Is it not apparent 



ic)2 TJie Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 



that this announcement will awaken very different 
emotions in the breasts of that white-robed company? 
All will hail it with adoring gratitude. All will re- 
joice in it. All will be happy in it. But some will 
feel it much more deeply and joyfully than others. 
For this occurs now, and no reason can be given 
why it should not be so then. The language must 
make diverse impressions upon your minds as you 
listen to it here in the sanctuary. It cannot be re- 
peated in any assembly of Christians, who would all 
listen to it with precisely the same feelings. And 
when caught up in that day from the Saviour's own 
lips, the emotions it enkindles must unavoidably take 
their hue, more or less, from each one's personal 
experience. 

There will, e.g., be individuals present at His bar, 
who, from having been converted at the last hour of 
life, or by reason of a very lukewarm piety, will 
have done little or nothing to feed the hungry, and 
clothe the naked, and succor the afflicted, of Christ's 
flock. And while the most faithful of His people 
will disclaim all merit for anything they were led to 
do in this way, yet they will derive from His gracious 
words, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
me," an ineffable satisfaction which the others cannot 
share. They who have done the most for 1 1 is cause 
will be the most forward to confess their unprofitable- 



The Scripture Docti'ine of Rewards. 193 

ness. But to have their feeble endeavors to serve 
Him, the humble efforts they have put forth, and 
the self-denial they have practised, in behalf of His 
church and people, thus recognized and lauded in 
the presence of the universe, this surely will fill them 
with a blessedness which they cannot know who 
have no such offices to recall. These last will be 
perfectly happy also ; but they will not have the same 
capacity of happiness as their brethren. A child's 
happiness maybe complete; but his bosom would 
not hold the happiness that pervades without filling 
his mother's heart. And a like inequality must at- 
tach to the relative capacities of the righteous as 
they go up to receive their rewards. 

This inequality, as it is affected by other causes, so 
also will it depend much upon the progress they 
have made in personal holiness here. Of course all 
will be immaculate when they enter heaven. But 
there will be among them, as we believe, that great 
company who, having died in infancy, will never 
have had any consciousness of sin. There will be 
others who, like the thief on the cross, will have 
passed by an instant transition, from a condition of 
hardened iniquity to a state of spotless purity ; while 
others still will have been waging a weary warfare 
with sin for thirty, fifty, seventy years. Now, allow- 
ing that all are alike holy as they bow before the 
throne and traverse the streets of the New Jerusalem, 

17 



194 The Scripture Doctrine of Rezvards. 



can it he supposed that they will all have, the same 
emotions and the same joy? Is this endless variety 
which pertains to the experience of believers here, to 
have no bearing upon their future lot? Does its 
significance begin and end with this transitory life? 
Is one child of God endowed with a full assurance 
of hope from the moment of his conversion ; and 
another left to walk in darkness all his days ; and a 
third assigned to a perpetual conflict with his own 
fierce passions, with alternate defeat and victory ; and 
a fourth appointed to a life-long struggle with the 
hostility of the world and the assaults of Satan : and 
is this diverse training to have no influence upon 
them in heaven ? We arrogate nothing when we say 
this cannot be : the laws of the human mind forbid 
it. It would imply an annihilation of memory. And 
it would go farther than anything else has ever gone 
in the Divine administration to warrant the inquiry, 
44 To what purpose is this waste ?" Perfectly happy 
all these glorified spirits are. But it is the law of 
our being to reap what we have sown, and according 
as we have sown, sparingly or bountifully. They 
have all sown to the Spirit, and they will reap life 
everlasting. But their sowing was in widely-different 
modes and measures; and so must their harvest be. 
The poor, desponding, tempted soul that has gone 
through life mourning that it had no love to Christ, 
though ready every day to wash His feet with its 



The Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 195 

tears and wipe them with the hairs of its head, cannot 
possibly experience in that world the same type and 
measure of joy with the triumphant soldier of the 
cross who has fought the good fight of faith and 
gone up to lay his trophies at the Master's feet with- 
out ever having known a doubt or fear of his final 
victory. It is not for us to say whether this or that 
is to wear the brighter crown. All we know, or care 
to know, is, that their crowns will differ as " one star 
differs from another star in glory." 

Again, the reigning sentiment in heaven is love to 
God. In the exercise of this love its bliss largely 
consists. Every one will cherish it to the full extent 
of his powers ; but how many circumstances will 
modify the sentiment in different cases ! We see this 
in the present life, — with men who have been great 
sinners ; with men whose conversion has been at- 
tended with peculiar providences; with those who 
have been blessed in their efforts for spreading 
Christianity ; with many whose families have shared 
largely in the grace and mercy of the Gospel; and 
with a multitude of others. Everywhere may be 
found those who feel that they have signal cause for 
gratitude to God. And if they feel this here, how 
much more in heaven. Those who have loved but a 
little here, will love much there. And they who 
have loved much in this world, will love still more 
in that. And since the exercise of holy love is 



196 The Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 

necessarily a source of happiness, their felicity will 
correspond with the measure of love which throbs in 
every heart. 

Again, the happiness of heaven flows in a large 
degree from its worship. The ransomed are before 
the throne of God. They serve Him day and night 
in His temple. They sing the perpetual song, " Wor- 
thy is the Lamb that was slain !" " And they shall 
see His face, and His name shall be in their fore- 
heads." We need not ask whether their bliss is per- 
fect. But is it co-equal ? Do sinners like Manasseh 
and Saul of Tarsus, like Augustine and Rochester, 
experience no higher joy as they look upon that Sa- 
viour and join in that anthem, than those who were 
never left to deny the faith nor to wander from the 
paths of virtue? And with what ecstasy will His 
faithful followers who have toiled and suffered long 
in His service unite in that worship! In every part 
of the Church there are those who, like their Master, 
find it their meat to do the will of their Father in 
heaven. They hold their property as his stewards. 
They are instant in prayer. They are using their 
gifts and opportunities to instruct the ignorant, to 
comfort the afflicted, to reclaim the wandering, to 
win souls to Christ. Not a few are engaged in the 
work of the ministry, preaching Christ crucified 
to the perishing, without fear or favor. Many take 
their lives in their hands, and go to carry salvation 



The Scriptttre Doctrine of Rewards. 197 

to pagan tribes. To some it is given not only to be- 
lieve on Him, but to suffer for His sake. Thousands 
of martyrs have sealed their faith with their blood. 

These various classes, and many others whom He 
has greatly honored in the way of doing or of suf- 
fering His will, whose labors or whose trials He has 
employed in glorifying His name and saving the 
souls of men, cannot fail to experience a rapture all 
their own as they gaze upon the " Lamb in the 
midst of the throne," and join in the Hosannas of 
the skies. To have been made the objects of His 
special love; to have been permitted to do or to 
endure anything on His behalf; to have been made 
instrumental in leading their fellow-sinners to the 
fountain of His blood ; to have been allowed the 
slightest agency in helping onward the glorious 
work of redemption ; the consciousness of this will 
fill them with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. 
While all others of that blood-washed throng will 
be filled with blessing, their blessedness will exceed. 
There must be degrees in glory. 

This is still further confirmed by the reflection, 
that the ransomed will be permitted to see something 
of the fridt of their labors for the good of the race. 

In this life we can trace the effects of our influence 
but very imperfectly. Even here we may have the 
grateful assurance that we have not " labored in 
vain;" that we have helped to minister a little com- 

17* 



19S The Scripture Doctrine of Reivards. 



fort or a little counsel or a little strength to the 
needy ; possibly that God has crowned with success 
our unworthy efforts to bring some fellow-sinner — 
one or more — to the saving knowledge of Christ. 
And you must know what happiness such a con- 
viction brings with it. But this is only the seed- 
time. The harvest is to come. And what a harvest 
will that be! It is of the nature of both good and 
bad influences that they propagate themselves. You 
put forth your hand to relieve a suffering family. 
You assist a deserving youth in obtaining an educa- 
tion. You instil God's truth into the minds of your 
Sunday or day-scholars. You take part in founding 
a Charity, or in sending forth a devoted missionary. 
Your kind and faithful counsels are made effectual to 
the converting of a sinner from the error of his way. 
By any one of these offices you may have originated 
trains of wholesome influence, which shall go on 
increasing in energy and power until the last day ; 
and when the beneficent results meet you, your emo- 
tions of joy and gratitude to God will be too big for 
utterance. And who will venture, to describe the 
feelings of those servants of God in that day, who 
shall have been instrumental in giving the Gospel to a 
benighted nation ; or in converting a multitude of sin- 
ners; or in sending young men into the ministry; or in 
establishing evangelical churches; or in writing books 
which, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, or Doddridge's Rise 



The Scripture Doctrine of Rezvards. 199 

and Progress, have proved "immortal"? all these 
mighty agencies having gone on perpetuating and 
multiplying themselves down to the final judgment, 
and will then come forth in their accumulated mag- 
nificence to greet the eyes of the feeble men who first 
set them in motion ! Is it for mortal tongue or pen 
to depict the wonder, love, and joy which will swell 
the bosoms of these humble workers as they survey 
the fruits of their labor ? Will there not be some- 
thing unique — exalted — overpowering — in the bless- 
edness they experience, as they cast their radiant 
crowns at the Redeemer's feet and cry, " Not unto 
us, not unto us, but unto Thy name be all the glory, 
for Thy mercy and for Thy truth's sake !" Surely it 
does not admit of a question that the everlasting re- 
wards of the righteous will shine with very unequal 
degrees of glory; while each will be glorious, and 
all will conspire to reflect the glory of our Immanuel. 
We have thus seen that the scriptural doctrine of 
rewards is one which excludes the idea of personal 
merit on the part of the recipients, and leaves no 
ground for boasting. The works rewarded are per- 
formed entirely through the strength imparted by 
the Divine Spirit; and the generous recognition 
they receive is wholly due to the Saviour's merits, 
not our own. It has also been shown that believers, 
though not rewarded for their works, are rewarded 
according to their works ; and, further, that not sim- 



200 The Scrip lure Doctrine of Rewards. 



ply by the sovereign appointment of God, but from 
the constitution He has given us and the relations 
we sustain to Him, these rewards will vary indefi- 
nitely. 

This announcement will cast a shadow upon some 
minds. " If this be so, will it not preclude us from 
all intercourse with many whom we have known 
and loved here, since they will be exalted to a 
sphere so far above our own ? And will not this 
mar the perfection of our happiness ?" It becomes 
us to speak with modesty on a theme which the 
Scriptures treat with so much reserve. That heaven 
must be a realm of almost illimitable extent, is appar- 
ent from the countless myriads of saints and angels 
who are to inhabit it. Of its divisions, territorial, 
social, or civil, we can form no satisfactory conjec- 
ture. We read of its " many mansions/' of the "new 
heavens," of the " third heaven/' of the " heaven of 
heavens," and other similar expressions. We can- 
not interpret them. We can neither affirm nor deny 
that grateful speculation that the redeemed may, in 
the flight of ages, be allowed to visit the various orbs 
and systems diffused throughout the universe. But 
we can suggest a consideration which meets the diffi- 
culty just stated. The disparities of Christian char- 
acter here present no bar to congenial fellowship: 
why should their unequal measures of honor and 
blessedness forbid it there ? There may be different 



The Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 201 

" degrees in glory," without separation. We may be 
sure there will be. Is there any Christian who does 
not expect, if lie reaches heaven at all, to talk with 
Abel, and Noah, and Joseph, and Peter, and Mary 
and Martha, and the Blessed Virgin ? Why, then, 
question that you will meet and mingle with those 
whose piety you revere here, and to whom you are 
bound by the ties of strong affection ? 

But, better still, make it your care to emulate their 
graces, and then you will be certain to keep side by 
side with them. 

This, indeed, is the sum of the whole matter, the 
conclusion to which the entire argument points us, 
that we be more faithful to our Lord and Master. 
Without adverting to other considerations, the bare 
thought of securing this glorious reward should be 
enough to inflame our zeal to the highest pitch. 
There is wondrous mercy in His offering to pardon 
and save us at all. But behold the " unsearchable 
riches of Christ." Not only does He forgive and 
save, but He notices with an approving eye every- 
thing that His people do for Him. He records their 
every word and act put forth on His behalf, and even 
the most trivial service rendered to the obscurest of 
His followers. These He will recall and crown with 
imperishable rewards at the last day. 

And, for your comfort, remember that the reward 
will be proportioned, not to your talents and oppor- 



202 The Scripture Doctrine of Rewards. 



tunities, but to the use you make of them ; not to 
what you accomplish, but to what you try to accom- 
plish ; not to the harvest you may reap here, but to 
the seed you sow. " Every man shall receive his 
own reward, according to his own labor." Not 
according to his gifts; not according to his suc- 
cesses ; not according to the worldly applause he 
may have won : but " according to his labor." 
This meets the case of every disciple, as well the 
poorest as the richest, as well the obscurest as the 
greatest, as well the servant with one talent as the 
servant with five. Only be faithful to your trust. 
Work from no sordid motive. Let the love of 
Christ constrain you to devote all your powers to 
His service, and when the labor of the day is over, 
and you go up to the great harvest-home, you will 
be " satisfied/' Heaven and earth may pass away, 
but "you shall in no wise lose your reward." 



THE STILLING OF THE TEMPEST. 



Matthew viii. 23-27. 



"And when He was ottered into a ship, His disciples 
followed Him. And, behold, there arose a great tem- 
pest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered 
with the waves ; but He was asleep. And His dis- 
ciples came to Him, and awoke Him, saying, Lord, 
save us : we perish. And He saith unto them, Why 
are ye fearful, ye of little faith? Then He arose, 
and rebuked the winds and the sea ; and there was a 
great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What 
maimer of man is this, that even the winds and the 
sea obey Him f (See, also, Mark iv. 35-41 ; Luke 
viii. 22-25.) 

There is no sheet of water on the globe around 
which such memories cluster, or which will be so 
often thought of in heaven, as the Sea of Gennesareth. 
We meet with it so constantly in the Gospels that 
every reader of the inspired annals must be familiar 
with its name and character. By way of refreshing 

203 



204 The Stilling- of the Tempest. 

your minds, let me state that in the Old Testament it 
is called the Sea of Cinneroth ; in the New, the Lake 
or Sea of Tiberias, of Galilee, of Gennesareth. It is 
of an oval shape, about thirteen miles long and six 
broad. It lies in a basin of volcanic origin, the most 
remarkable feature of which is, that it is depressed 
about seven hundred feet below the level of the Med- 
iterranean Sea. The lofty sides of this basin come 
shelving down from the neighboring plateaus, masses 
of black and sterile rock, on the eastern side not less 
than two thousand feet in height, and on either side 
furrowed by deep ravines. On the west, the ridges 
are of lower altitude and more broken, affording nu- 
merous sites for hamlets and towns. At the period 
of the Advent, there were no less than nine cities on 
the shores of this lake, and the hills in every direc- 
tion were dotted with villages. In this region our 
Lord spent the greater part of His public life. " His 
own city," Capernaum, was here. Many of His 
miracles were performed here. Here He called His 
first disciples. Often did He sail on the bosom of 
this sea. Often were its shores pressed by His 
sacred feet. So much, indeed, of His ministry was 
spent here, that to expunge from the New Testa- 
ment all that pertains to His life and labors in the 
environs of Gennesareth would be to obliterate no 
inconsiderable portion of the four Gospels. 

To this most interesting spot our narrative con- 



The Stilling of the Tempest. 205 

ducts us. In considering it, I shall keep in view the 
accounts given by the three Evangelists who men- 
tion it, each of whom relates some incidents not 
given by the others. (Matt. viii. 23-7; Mark iv. 35- 
41 ; Luke viii. 22-25.) 

" Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, 
He gave commandment to depart unto the other 
side." St. Mark says, " the same day when the even 
was come." The harmonists are generally agreed 
that Mark in this instance follows the order of time. 
The " day" was that on which he had delivered the 
long series of parables recorded in the 13th chapter 
of St. Matthew. A most laborious day it must have 
been to the Saviour. The people had flocked to 
Him from the neighboring country. He needed 
rest. And He proposes to His disciples that they 
shall go on board their boat and cross over to the 
eastern side of the lake. But He must delay a mo- 
ment longer. For at this juncture an eager scribe 
approaches Him with a warm protestation of love, 
" Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." 
We may thank him for his " confession ;" for it has 
secured to us that most touching response of Jesus : 
" The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have 
nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to lay 
His head." Two others succeed him, to each of 
whom He replies in terms which have ministered 
admonition and instruction to thousands who were 

18 



2o6 The Stilling of the Tempest. 



persuading themselves that they were ready " to 
follow Christ." We cannot dwell upon these events. 
It was His own proposal to cross the lake. Did 
He not foresee the storm? Did He not know that 
that tranquil evening (for such it no doubt was) would 
prove the harbinger of a tempestuous night? Why 
not, then, wait on shore, or at some quiet anchorage, 
until the morning? Certainly He knew it all. But 
was that a reason why He should postpone His voy- 
age ? Rather the reverse. To Himself personally 
sunshine and storm were alike. And as to His dis- 
ciples, all His intercourse with them was made 
subservient to their needful training for their high 
mission. He had gathered lessons for them from 
the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air. He 
will have nature speak to them also in louder and 
grander tones. The tornado shall become their 
teacher. They must learn that if they mean to fol- 
low Him their path will not always lie along the 
peaceful strand and the grain-fringed roads; but 
among thorns as well, and thickets of suffering 
and danger. He would teach His disciples in every 
age not to be surprised nor depressed if they should 
find their sky suddenly clouded over and their w 7 ay 
beset with perils. Nor must they infer from such an 
experience that they had mistaken the path of duty 
and forgotten their Guide. It is He Himself who 
leads His disciples right into the face of the coming 



The Stilling of the Tempest. 207 

hurricane : and so He has been dealing with them 
from that hour to this. How, otherwise, should they 
ever attain that true development which flows only 
from the discipline of sorrow? Or how be fitted to 
enjoy the heavenly rest? But this is to anticipate 
our subject. 

They launch forth upon the lake. The Saviour 
retires to the stern of their little bark, and, lying 
down, falls asleep. Mark alone mentions that this 
was in the hinder part of the ship, and that His 
head was " on a pillow," — probably the leather cush- 
ion of the pilot. I refer to it only as an illustration 
of the style of this Evangelist. It is one of his pecu- 
liarities to mention details. Thus he alone, of the 
three historians that describe this miracle, speaks of 
the pillow. Nor does either Matthew or Luke men- 
tion that there were other vessels, "other little ships,' 1 
in company with the one that bore the Master.* 
Presently a storm arises. No unusual thing upon 
this lake : nor upon any lake shut in by mountains 
which are pierced by deep gorges stretching up 
from the water. A " great tempest" it was. The 
tranquil sea was churned into a furious turmoil. 
The waves dashed into the boat. u It was covered 



* So, also, in describing the miracle of the feeding of the five 
thousand, Mark alone says they sat down on "the green grass" (eh. 
ri. 39)- 



20S The Stilling of the Tempest. 



with the waves" (says Matthew). "They were filled 
with water" (Luke). " The waves beat into the ship" 
(says Mark, characteristically) " so that it was now 
full." His companions were not men to be easily 
frightened. They were seafaring men. That lake 
was their familiar fishing-ground. They had en- 
countered many a storm there. But never, we may 
presume, a storm like this. What with the violence 
of the gale, the turbulent sea, the billows threaten- 
ing every moment to submerge their frail vessel 
already filling with water, all aggravated by the 
thick darkness of the night, it was natural they 
should think themselves "in jeopardy." 

Meanwhile the Master sleeps on. How beautiful 
and striking the contrast, — the composure of that 
peaceful sleeper amidst the raging of the elements, 
the quivering of the little fishing-craft, and the con- 
sternation of the disciples ! Exhausted by the work 
of that eventful day, the slumber into which He falls 
is so profound that nothing of all this clamor dis- 
turbs it. It is the only instance in which we read of 
His sleeping. Doubtless He did sleep as other men 
do; but it might have seemed peculiar to mention 
it except in some incidental way as here. The 
Divine Spirit will omit no circumstance which may 
be requisite to establish the humanity of our Lord. 
Elsewhere we see Him subject to hunger and thirst 
and fatigue; to joy and sorrow and tears. Now we 



The Stilling of the Temp. 209 

behold the proof that His frame, like our own, re- 
quired to be recruited by sleep. 

The spectacle is one to be pondered. It is very 
su^crestive. One is readv to ask, M How could He 
sleep who was clothed with absolute Divinity ? The 
Divine nature cannot sleep. And if the two natures 
are so intimately and indissolubly united in His per- 
son, how could the humanity slumber while the 
Deity wakes?" Questions like these come unbid- 
den to the lips. They would come even if, with all 
our present knowledge of His constitution, we could 
stand by the Saviour, once more a pilgrim on the earth, 
and see Him asleep. The instinctive feeling would 
be, M How can these things be?'' We do not know. 
We are neither required nor permitted to know. 
The union of the two natures in Christ must be a 
mystery to the angels. All that we are concerned 
with is the fact. We accept the fact on God's own 
testimony. It is of the essence of a genuine faith to 
believe, on such testimony, where it cannot fully 
comprehend. Nor is the task imposed upon faith 
by this spectacle really any greater than that by 
which it is exercised throughout the entire history 
of the Saviour. The faith that can stand by the 
manger of Bethlehem and adore, is ready for all that 
follows. And, duly considered, there is nothing 
more remarkable in Christ's sleeping than in His 
eating and drinking and weeping and suffering. All 

18* 



210 The Stilling of the Tempest. 

this was indispensable. He must be " very man" 
no less than "very God." The humanity entire, sin 
alone excepted, must be blended with the Divinity 
entire. Redemption demanded this. And our com- 
fort demanded it. Not to speak of the strength 
with which it has inspired thousands of Christian 
travellers when overtaken by storms at sea, how 
many faithful disciples have betaken themselves, in 
their hours of bodily and mental exhaustion, to this 
bark upon Gennesareth, and gathered rest and peace 
from looking upon that placid sleeper! How it 
brings home to the bosom, even more than the 
other functions of His humanity, the sense of His 
oneness with us; the complete identity of His 
nature with our own! And how instructive and 
consolatory the moral aspects of the whole scene, 
as bearing upon the troubles of life ! But of this 
hereafter. 

The effect produced upon the disciples was what 
might have been anticipated, — i.e., it was in keeping 
with what we have seen of them before. They can- 
not survey this appalling scene unmoved. Their 
boat is filling with water. Their skill avails nothing 
against the tempest. Death, as they imagine, stares 
them in the face. These are crises in which men do 
not stop to reason. There is a tumult within which 
matches the tumult without, and precludes sober 
reflection. Had they known as much of their Lord 



The Stilling of the Tempest, 2 1 1 

as they knew after the day of Pentecost, His rest 
had not been disturbed. They would have felt that 
the waves could no more swallow up the vessel in 
which He was a passenger, than they could ingulf 
the mountains that shut them in. But as yet they 
were not certain as to His dominion. They saw Him 
as through a glass darkly. They loved Him. They 
reverenced Him. They believed in Him. But it 
was not with the imperial faith with which they 
afterward went forth to make Him known to a 
ruined world, and to proclaim in the ears of princes 
and potentates that they must " kiss the Son" or 
perish. Their slender faith trembled like the beams 
of their little bark in the gale. Its weakness and its 
truthfulness were both revealed. Its weakness, in 
their awaking the Master at all : its truthfulness, in 
their confidence that He could help them. Without 
faith, or with a strong faith, they might have left Him 
to sleep on : in the one case, surrendering themselves 
to downright despair ; in the other, assured that, 
sleeping or waking, His presence must shield them 
from death. But now, with a wavering faith, they 
arouse Him by their outcries, whom all the turbu- 
lence of the storm had failed to disturb. 

They deferred it, we must believe, to the last mo- 
ment. They hoped the wind might abate. They 
hoped to bring their boat under control. Failing in 
this, they would say among themselves, " Surely He 



2 i 2 The Stilling of the Tempest. 

must awake soon. He cannot slumber through such 
a tornado." But He wakes not. The danger thick- 
ens, and with one accord they hasten to Him, — a 
group of anxious men, with terror depicted in every 
countenance, and deep dejection in every tone, kneel- 
ing around that serene sleeper, — " Lord, save us: we 
perish : carest Thou not that we perish ?" The 
broken outcries of distress, uttered, in the language 
they used, in fewer words than we employ in 
translating them. According to Luke there is a 
quick iteration of the title, " Master, Master, we 
perish !" This again is nature. Doubtless they all 
joined in the vehement appeal. But what must be 
thought of the [«« fisXet <™^] " carest Thou not ?" He 
had never heard such language before from the lips 
of a disciple. Once afterward He did hear it, the 
identical phrase ; for it was with this unseemly ex- 
pression Martha came to Him complaining of Mary: 
11 Dost Thou not care — is it notliing to Thee — that my 
sister hath left me to serve alone?" (Luke x. 40.) 
In Martha's case there was very little to extenuate 
the rudeness. The disciples might plead the alarm 
and agitation of the moment. And yet this could 
not justify the language. They had no right to re- 
proach their Lord in this way with neglecting their 
safety. If there was danger, it was danger He shared 
with them. If there was death, He must die with 
them. They quite forgot the reverence which was 



The Stilling of the Tempest. 2 1 3 

due Him. But for the overpowering influence of 
fear this incident could not have occurred. 

And, unhappily, the offence has been often repeated 
since. If you have been much conversant with 
scenes of bereavement, you will have heard similar 
reproaches cast upon God, and, perhaps, far worse, 
because uttered after the crisis of the affliction has 
gone by. I do not allude to the despondency which 
may follow a great and sudden loss : nor to the sad 
and conscious inability of a stricken heart to pene- 
trate the " clouds and darkness" of God's dispen- 
sations. But to the presumptuous sentiment not 
unfrequently uttered, that God has imposed an " un- 
necessary" trial ; that He has acted harshly; that He 
" does not care" for the sufferer His rod has visited. 
I have sometimes heard language of this sort which 
made me shudder. " Who art thou that repliest 
against God?" Much maybe conceded to the an- 
guish of spirit caused by a sore affliction. But it is 
not for a worm of the dust to challenge the right- 
eousness and wisdom of any of the Divine dispen- 
sations. To lose our confidence in God, in His 
unchangeable wisdom, rectitude, and faithfulness, is 
to lose everything. The moment we cast off that 
fastening, we are abroad upon a shoreless and tem- 
pestuous ocean, without chart or compass. And to 
go still further and reproach Him for what He does, 
or for what He omits to do, what is this but to in- 



2 1 4 The Stilling of the Tempest. 

voke fresh judgments upon our heads? To say that 
He does not merit these censures, is to say very 
little. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do 
right?" He cannot do otherwise: His holy and 
" immutable" nature forbids it. The sufferers who 
call in question His equity or His kindness, often 
see both these qualities illustrated in the issue of 
the very allotments which have so embittered them. 
And they might learn from His word that all such 
providences will be fully cleared up hereafter. 

" Dost Thou not care that we perish ?" Of course 
He cares. He has no thought of letting you be lost. 

" Judge not tne Lord by feeble sense," 

ye timid fishermen. Though He sleep, He is not 
unmindful of you. He loves you too well to let you 
perish here; and you shall have an instant proof 
of His love in the gentle reproof with which He 
requites your unseemly remonstrance. Mark and 
Luke make His mandate to the storm precede His 
address to the disciples. Matthew reverses the order, 
and with connecting particles which show that this 
is the true sequence. It harmonizes the accounts to 
suppose that after a single word to the sea, He spoke 
to the disciples, and then again addressed the sea. 
Still retaining His recumbent posture, He opens His 
eyes upon the excited group around Him, and says 
— What would you have expected Him to say? 



The Stilling of the Tempest. 215 

What would you have done but rebuke them for 
their ungracious, " Dost Thou not care?" But " His 
ways are not as our ways." He bears their reproach 
in silence. Without even noticing it, He mildly re- 
proves their want of confidence in Him : " Why are 
ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" "What is there in 
this storm to fill you with such alarm ? What has 
become of your trust in my power and faithfulness? 
Whom do you take me to be, that you can imagine 
we are in peril of shipwreck?" And then rising, — 
not till then, — for thus it is written : " Then He 
arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there 
was a great calm." Or, as Mark gives it more mi- 
nutely, " He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said 
unto the sea, ' Peace, be still.' And the wind ceased, 
and there was a great calm." 

This brings us into the presence of a stupendous 
miracle. Beginning to exercise His miraculous 
powers almost with the opening of His ministry, He 
had on numerous occasions displayed His control 
over different forms of disease, and in one instance 
over death itself. He had cured paralysis, fever, and 
leprosy. He had in two instances healed the sick 
when at a distance from them ; in one case, several 
miles away. At Nain, He had restored the widow's 
son to life. He had cast out demons. But there 
was one sphere which, up to this time, He had not 
entered. It was settled that He had the mastery 



2i 6 Tlic Stilling of the Tempest. 



over the most malignant types of disease; that death 
paid Him homage; and devils trembled before Him. 
But would nature own Him as her Lord ? Would 
the elements confess His supremacy? This had 
been claimed of old as a Divine prerogative. It is 
one of our intuitive convictions that God alone has 
absolute control over the powers of nature. We 
scarcely require an inspired pen to inform us that 
"the sea is His, and He made it; that He sitteth 
upon the flood, and stilleth the noise of the seas, the 
noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people." 
What, then, are we to think of the scene here pre- 
sented ? Rising out of His tranquil sleep, Jesus 
looks abroad from the deck of that tempest-tossed 
boat, and utters two words only, Iccona / ITe^t/iajtro / 
" Peace ! Be still !" The first referring to the noise, 
the second to the violence, of the waves : or, as some 
prefer, the first addressed to the wind, the second to 
the sea. And instantly " they ceased, and there 
was a calm." 

All three of the Evangelists use the word " re- 
buked": " He rebuked the winds and the sea." The 
peculiar significance of this term has given counte- 
nance to a conjecture sanctioned by many eminent 
critics, that our Saviour had in view not merely the 
storm, but the evil spirits by whose agency it had 
been stirred up. Our information on this subject is 
very meagre. But Satan is styled the " Prince of the 



The Stilling of the Tempest. 2 1 7 

power of the air." It is certain he can do nothing 
in that region except as he receives permission. But 
in one memorable instance the curtain is lifted, and 
we know he was concerned in getting up the hurri- 
cane that whelmed the children of Job in the ruins 
of the house where they were feasting. If this oc- 
curred with one storm, why not with others? And 
if in any other, why not in this one on Tiberias ? 
For it is not to be overlooked that this voyage 
across the lake was not a mere pleasure-excursion. 
Its incidental design was to afford the Saviour an 
opportunity for needful rest. But there was another 
end to be accomplished. On the eastern shore of 
the lake, just where the prow of their vessel was 
pointing, there were two of the most wretched crea- 
tures to be found, I will not say in Palestine, but on 
the globe. A whole legion of devils had entered into 
them, and reduced them to a condition which is but 
imperfectly illustrated by the most extreme and vio- 
lent types of insanity known to the world. Beyond 
the reach of all human help, their pitiable condi- 
tion invited the sympathy of the Great Physician. 
Neither His fatigue, nor the impending storm, shall 
impede Him on His mission of mercy. He is re- 
solved to release these prisoners of Satan from their 
horrid bondage ; and to visit His displeasure upon 
the demons that possessed them. With much less 
sagacity than they may lay claim to, the Arch-adver- 

19 



2 1 8 The Stilling of the Tempest. 

sary and his hosts might surmise the object of the 
trip. And surmising it, there is nothing romantic in 
the idea that they would set themselves to counter- 
work it. This midnight voyage in a fragile boat 
offered a tempting opportunity to try their skill in 
getting up a gale. And He who for wise purposes 
indulged them in the kindred assault upon the 
family of the patriarch, allowed them to make this 
demonstration also, in order that Jesus might achieve 
a double victory over them, first on the sea, and then 
on the land. 

It was, then, if we may accept this view, a literal 
11 rebuke" which fell from His lips. He spoke as 
well to the malignant spirits who were fanning this 
storm as to the storm itself. In any event, the effect 
that followed was marvellous. That voice would 
scarcely be heard beyond the bulwarks of the small 
bark. And yet it was heard far and near. The 
fury of the wind could not arrest it. The surging 
of the billows could not drown it. It penetrated the 
cloud-laden atmosphere of that dismal night. It 
spread over the wide bosom of Gennesareth. Where 
a cannon's roar would have been lost in the turmoil, 
it resounded along the rock-bound shore. The gale 
heard it, and hushed to silence. The waves heard 
it, and sank to rest. While their Master sleeps, the 
restless elements burst from their repose into frantic 
disorder. The Master wakes, and instantly, not as 



The Stilling of the Temp: 219 

storms usually subside, by a gradual ebb, they lie 
down at His feet in a slumber as tranquil as His 
own. Two brief words have done it all. The emi- 
nent Greek philosopher and critic, Longinus, quotes, 
as a signal example of the sublime, that Divine com- 
mand, " Let there be light ! And there was light." 
There is perhaps no second instance on record 
which so nearly approximates to it as the one we 
are considering. " Peace ! Be still ! And there was 
a great calm." " A great calm," — instant, perfect, 
universal; the whole air still; the whole lake still. 
Nature hears the majestic voice, 

•• And crowns Him Lord of all !'' 

We are prepared for what followed. His simple- 
minded, loving companions, " being afraid, won- 
dered, saying one to another, What manner of man 
is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?*' 
y other effect would have excited our wonder. 
Their appeal to Him implied a certain measure of 
faith. It was made with a vague feeling that He 
might possibly do something to relieve them. In 
any event, it would comfort them to have Him 
awake ; to feel that He was really with them and 
cognizant of their danger, — precisely as a child on 
board a ship which is overtaken by a storm, feels 
calmer and safer to have his father awake than 
asleep. They did not know what He would do. They 



2 20 The Stilling of the Tempest. 



certainly had no thought of the scene that followed. 
They had seen many a storm wax and wane; but 
never one which terminated as this did, in the 
twinkling of an eye, and at the bidding of a human 
voice. How could they help saying, " What man- 
ner of man is this ?" 

It must be our feeling too. Every thoughtful 
reader of this narrative must be ready to exclaim, 
11 What manner of man is this ?" You have some- 
times placed yourselves by the proto-martyr Stephen. 
And as you have heard him say, " Behold, I see the 
heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on 
the right hand of God ;" and then, presently, with 
his last breath, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit !" 
you would hardly be able to repress the feeling, 
" What manner of man is this, ■ the Son of man/ who 
stands beside the eternal throne and receives the 
spirits of departed saints into the highest heavens ?' " 
Now you place yourselves on board that slender 
transport on Gennesareth, and see " this same Jesus" 
hush its turbulent waves to rest by a word; and 
again you ask, in reverent awe, " What manner of 
man is this f" If you hesitate for an answer, the 
Psalmist will relieve you. " The Lord on high is 
mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than 
the mighty waves of the sea." "Thou rulest the 
raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, 
Thou stillest them." " The waters stood eibove the 



The Stilling of the Tempest. 221 

mountains : at Thy rebuke they fled ; at the voice of 
Thy thunder they hasted away." (Ps. xciii. 4 ; lxxxix. 
9; civ. 6, 7.) Have you occasion to ask, " Of whom 
speaketh the Psalmist this ?" You know well that 
there is but One Being in the universe of whom 
these things could be affirmed : that to ascribe them 
to any mere creature would be blasphemy. Yet this 
very sovereignty over the sea is exercised here, as it 
were, before your eyes, by Jesus of Nazareth. Can 
you doubt, then, who it is that stands upon the deck 
of that little vessel and commands the sea ? Can 
that sublime, " Peace ! Be still !" be any other than 
the echo of the voice which said to the primeval 
chaos, " Let there be light I" and there was light ? 
In this way do the Scriptures bear constant and 
emphatic testimony to the supreme Deity of our 
Redeemer. 

The symbolical reference of this narrative to the 
history of the Church and the experience of indi- 
vidual believers, is too obvious not to have been 
often dwelt upon. 

The Church, " in crossing over to the other side," 
has fared very much as did this boat upon Tiberias. 
It had scarcely cast off its moorings before the 
storms began to beat upon it. And they have not 
ceased to this hour. Intervals of calm there have 
been, bright days of sunshine. But these are merely 

19* 



222 The Stilling of t lie Tempest. 



lulls in the gale. A rough voyage it has been, as it 
promises to be to the end. Sometimes, indeed, the 
tempest has been very violent. The ark, freighted 
with these priceless treasures, has been swept by the 
waves of deadly hate and passion, and threatened with 
destruction. Voyagers of stronger nerve than those 
who sailed that night on the unquiet lake, have been 
alarmed for the result. And, what has heightened 
their fears, the Master has seemed to be " asleep." 
They knew that He could extricate them. But He 
did not come. They called to Him. They impor- 
tuned Him. Still, He came not. He came not — 
until their faith and constancy were fully tried, and 
the moment had arrived most fit for His interven- 
tion. Then He did come. And He said to the 
surging billows, "Peace! Be still T And they 
ceased their raging ; and He brought His wearied 
Church out into a tranquil sea. 

Thus also it happens with His disciples in their 
personal history. This voyage is a type of the 
Christian life. The object to be accomplished is 
to " cross the narrow sea." The proposal comes in 
every instance — as it came in the case before us — 
from the Master Himself: " Let us pass over unto 
the other side." Who among you, my brethren, 
would ever have set out on this voyage for the 
"better country" if you had not heard His voice say- 
ing to you," Folloiv me — to the other side" ? That 



The Stilling of the Tempest. 223 

you should encounter storms, was a thing of course. 
He warned you of this before starting, and bade you 
" count the cost." It should occasion neither sur- 
prise nor discouragement, then, if you find that you 
are traversing a tempestuous sea. Our resource is 
precisely that of the disciples. The believer hastens, 
in the cloudy and dark day, to his Refuge. He flies 
to Christ as instinctively as that little company did 
in the gale. A token of His Divinity it is that 
He can listen to so many appeals at once. For they 
are going up to Him from every part of the globe. 
Wherever there is a disciple in want, in danger, in 
sorrow, in suffering, he is crying, " Lord, save !" 
What an ear must that be which is never confused 
by these myriad-voices ! What a bosom that can 
entertain these myriad-complaints ! What an intelli- 
gence that can provide for these myriad-wants ! 

For it is not only our own troubles that we spread 
before Him. We go to Him — it is our privilege to 
do so — with the cares and sorrows of our friends, of 
the Church, of our country, of the world. This is 
our resource when true religion is declining, when 
the love of many is waxing cold, and formalism is 
supplanting real devotion, and the unconverted are 
growing more obdurate, and a mighty freshet of 
worldliness is breaking over the Church ; at such a 
juncture (and this is one of them) faithful disciples 
will be found kneeling at His feet and crying, " Lord, 



224 The S til lino- of the Ton pest. 

save, or we perish !" And in a time of public ca- 
lamity, as during those long years of war which del- 
uged our land with the blood of brothers, and seemed 
to be sweeping us on towards an abyss which no man 
could fathom, from ten thousand burdened hearts the 
cry went up continually, "Lord, save y or zve perish /" 

That He does not always answer at once, we know 
too well. And alike with our public and our private 
sorrows, when He delays we are prone to fear that 
He is "asleep''; that He u does not care." But it is 
not so. He hears all — sees all — knows all — and in 
His own good time, which is always the best time, 
He will either rise and rebuke the storm, or so assure 
His people of His presence with them, that the fury 
of the tempest shall not disturb their "perfect peace." 
In the end He will rebuke it. To every true disciple 
this voyage will have an auspicious end. The haven 
to which it is conducting them will be the more wel- 
come for the perils of the way. A blessed haven it 
is. No night ever comes down upon it. No vapors 
obscure it. No storms ruffle it. Fed by t'he river of 
the water of life, it stretches up to the very foot of the 
throne, and its crystal depths reflect for evermore the 
glories of the heaven of heavens. What do you not 
owe to One who is conducting you to such a haven ? 
And what are you doing to help others on through 
the perils of the voyage, to this tranquil harbor? 

It is our humble hope that we are travelling in that 



The Stilling of the Tempest. 225 

bark which bears Jesus of Nazareth. Certain it is, 
that of the thousands of barks which are traversing 
the sea of life, this one alone can survive its storms. 
Do you never think of this, — you who have not yet 
owned Him as your Lord and Saviour? What de- 
fence have you for the hour of danger? It is swiftly 
approaching. It may be upon you at any moment. 
It will inevitably be upon you when you draw near 
to death. How can you bear to face that storm un- 
friended and alone ? What would you not give, amidst 
the gloom and horror of a death-bed, to hear the ma- 
jestic voice that spoke to Gennesareth say to the tur- 
moil without and the fiercer conflict within, "Peace ! 
Be still 7" Repent and believe, and you shall find 
it so. 



THE ARROGANCE AND CAPRICIOUSNESS 
OF THE WORLD, IN DEALING WITH 
TRUE RELIGION. 



Matthew xi. 16-19. 



" But wherennto shall I liken this generation ? It is 
like unto children sitting in the markets, and calliftg 
unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto 
you, and ye have not danced ; zve have mourned unto 
you, and ye have not lamented. For John came 
neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a 
devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, 
and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine- 
bibbcr, a friend of publicans and sinners. But zvis- 
dom is justified of her children!' 

Our Saviour has just been speaking of John the 
Baptist. Detecting in the minds of those around 
Him a certain disparaging estimate of this great 
Prophet, He vindicates his reputation and assigns 
him that lofty place in the Divine economy of re- 
demption, accorded him by the Old Testament 
writers. By a natural transition, He passes from 
226 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 227 

this topic to the treatment experienced both by the 
Baptist and Himself, as exhibiting the capricious 
temper of their countrymen. In His usual manner, 
He brings out the point He wishes to present by 
means of a striking illustration. '• But whereunto 
shall I liken this generation ? It is like unto children 
sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, 
and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have 
not danced ; we have mourned unto you, and ye 
have not lamented." The word " market" is of 
broader significance in the East than with us. It is 
the general place of concourse for the transaction of 
all kinds of business : and, as a matter of course, 
children resort to it for recreation. The Saviour, 
observing their sports, made use of them, as He was 
wont to do of familiar objects and incidents, to set 
forth an important moral lesson. A group of these 
children being collected, some of them bent upon 
play, and indifferent whether it shall be a mock-festi- 
val or a mock-funeral, complain of their companions 
that they will join them in neither. " We pipe" (we 
play you a merry air), " and you will not dance. We 
try you then in another vein, and imitate the dirge 
performed over the dead: but you refuse to simulate 
mourners and beat your breasts." 

The critics are widely divided on this passage. 
One set insist that by the children who make the 
complaint, our Saviour designs to represent Himself 



2 28 llic World, Arrogant and Capricious. 

and the Baptist. Others would see Him and His 
Forerunner in the silent children, who are com- 
plained of. While a third class contend, and in my 
view rightly, that they are not represented by either 
the complaining or the passive children ; the whole 
group being intended to illustrate the diverse tem- 
pers of that perverse, fault-finding generation. As if 
He had said : " This people resemble a host of ill- 
humored children, whom it is impossible to please in 
any way ; one part desires this, and another that, so 
that they cannot agree upon any rational pursuit or 
behavior." 

In this way had they treated both John and Him- 
self. What they censured John for lacking, they 
condemned Jesus for having, and vice versa. " For 
John came neither eating nor drinking;" or, as Luke 
gives it, " neither eating bread nor drinking wine." 
Which means simply that he denied himself the 
common articles of diet. For thirty years he lived 
in a secluded region of the country, subsisting 
chiefly on locusts and wild honey, and wearing a 
dress made of camel-skins. We have no explana- 
tion of this. But thus far conjecture may aid us. It 
was a period of general declension in religion. The 
nation had sunk into the grossest impiety and cor- 
ruption. Their priests were formalists and hypocrites. 
The people were hardened and dissolute. To John 
was assigned the high and responsible mission of 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 229 

arousing them from their guilty slumber by pro- 
claiming the advent of their long-expected Messiah. 
The emergency was not to be met by the mild notes 
of dulcimers and soft recorders. It demanded the 
clarion blast of the trumpet. The herald must be a 
stern man, one who could thunder the terrors of the 
law into the ears of that callous generation, and 
summon them to prepare for their coming Lord. 
And in this view, the training of the Baptist was in 
perfect keeping with the work he had to do ; as it 
was amply vindicated by the startling effects which 
attended his preaching. 

Had he been the harbinger of a political Messiah 
his austerities would have been readily tolerated, — 
as in fact they were for a considerable period. It 
was not until they saw the character of Christ that 
they assailed His Forerunner. Then, their hostility 
assumed the most malignant form. It was a part of 
the popular theology of the day, that wicked and 
unclean spirits were wandering up and down in 
desert places. And they did not hesitate to say 
that the Baptist's ascetic life was to be ascribed to 
one of these gloomy demons who had taken posses- 
sion of him and driven him into the wilderness. 
" They say, he hath a devil." When his Master 
came it was in a different guise. "The Son of man 
[His common title in speaking of Himself] came 
eating and drinking." His home was not in the 

20 



230 The Worlds Arrogant and Capricious. 

desert, but in the town. It would seem that He 
passed the first thirty years of His life at Nazareth. 
Frdm the day of His manifestation to Israel till His 
death, He lived as a man among men. He was 
much in Capernaum, often at Jerusalem, rather seek- 
ing than shunning the cities and villages. He min- 
gled freely with the people, attended their marriages 
and their funerals, accepted invitations to their tables, 
talked with them as occasion served on any topics 
they proposed, went up with them to the temple, and 
in every way identified Himself with them as one of 
themselves. And herein He exposed Himself as 
much to reproach as the Baptist had by his oppo- 
site mode of life. John had a " demon." Christ 
was a " glutton and wine-bibber." It was the offence 
of the one, that he dwelt in the desert : of the other, 
that He consorted with the people. One was de- 
nounced as an anchoret; the other as an epicure. 
Who could stand before such a tribunal? Principles 
were nothing. Character was nothing. Actions were 
nothing. The court had made up its judgment be- 
fQre hearing the argument. It sought no light, be- 
cause it wanted none. The case was already settled. 
It was simply anticipating the issue, and the mode of 
it, which afterward found expression at Pilate's bar, 
"Crucify Him!' 1 "Crucify Him!" 

The inconsistency, however, exhibited in pro- 
nouncing condemnation alike upon the Master and 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 231 

His servant is rather apparent than real. The princi- 
ple was the same in both cases, and the animus the 
same. The motive which inspired the blow was 
one, and the object aimed at was one. For Jesus 
and John were prophets, not of different faiths, but 
of the same faith. They came on a common errand. 
They published the same Divine truths. They 
taught, and suffered, and ultimately died in the 
same cause. And the opposition they encountered 
was marked with the same unity. It sprang from a 
common root, the universal enmity of the human 
heart to God and His truth. They maligned John 
because he was "a man sent from God;" and they 
maligned Jesus because He came forth from God. 
John they persecuted because he preached the truth; 
and they persecuted Jesus because He " told them 
the truth." Each might have said to them, "Am I 
therefore become your enemy because I tell you the 
truth?" (Gal. iv. 16.) This was their real offence. 
And this appeal which fell from the lips of St. Paul 
in addressing a distant church, a quarter of a century 
later, shows that this bitter antipathy to God's truth 
was no local nor even national peculiarity. It was, 
in fact, the great conflict of the ages. It was the 
spirit that nerved the arm of Cain when he assassi- 
nated his brother; which beheaded John and nailed 
Jesus to the cross; and which has breathed in all 
the hostility of the world to the Church from the 



252 The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 

fall to the crucifixion and from the crucifixion to 
this hour. If you imagine it has bowed to the 
growing might and majesty of Christianity, and sus- 
pended its attacks upon the Gospel, you are mis- 
taken. The essential spirit of the world resembles, 
in one important particular, the spirit of true re- 
ligion : it is immutable, — I mean, of course, until it is 
subdued by Omnipotent grace, and so transmuted 
into the spirit of religion. Darkness and light are 
not more at variance. Nor will it be difficult to 
show that the very conflict between these powerful 
elements commemorated in the text, and which 
revealed itself in the apparently incompatible asper- 
sions heaped upon Christ and His Forerunner, has 
been perpetuated to the present time and is waging 
before our eyes. Herein lies the practical signifi- 
cance of this Scripture as a lesson for us, — a Scrip- 
ture too little pondered, and rarely, if ever, quoted as 
having the slightest bearing upon the Church of our 
day, or upon questions of personal duty. 

For what have we in this narrative but a usurpa- 
tion by the world of a right to control the Church? 
The Pharisees, dissatisfied alike with the Baptist and 
his Master, denounce their teaching and example as 
of evil tendency. After the day of Pentecost, the 
Sanhedrim cite Peter and John before them, and 
u command them not to speak at all nor teach 
in the name of Jesus." Must we go back eighteen 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 233 

centuries for facts of this sort? Go into your 
libraries and take down almost at random the 
favorite novels and magazines of the day, and see 
whether you do not encounter, if religion be intro- 
duced at all, the same self-complacent spirit in deal- 
ing with the vital doctrines of Christianity. Your 
sphere must be a favored one if you are not, now 
and then, edified in social life with oracular exposi- 
tions of Christianity from people who know nothing 
of atonement, of repentance, of faith, of holiness ; 
and to whom the current terms of theology are like 
words of an unknown dialect. These are people 
who would not have scrupled to dictate to John, or 
even to Jesus, how He ought to order His teaching 
and His life. They are not backward in proscribing 
this or that tenet or practice as having no sanction 
from the Scriptures. They are jealous of attempts 
to draw any dividing line between the Church and 
the world, — as they are also prompt at impugning 
the motives of Christians who addict themselves to 
a watchful and holy life. 

The Church still has its John the Baptists, its 
stern preachers of repentance, who boldly reprove 
the sins and follies of society. And it has preachers 
who utter the same warnings, but more in the tone 
of Him who wept while predicting the doom of that 
guilty city that "knew not the time of its visitation." 
Both are obnoxious to the world's censures. " We 

20* 



234 The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 

do not believe in a sort of religion which clothes 
people in sackcloth ; which makes mirth a sin ; 
which puts all amusements under ban ; which would 
infold society in an atmosphere of perpetual gloom. 
Give us, rather, a religion which will take its fill of 
this world while preparing for the next. We see no 
law of asceticism in the New Testament. And the 
preachers who enjoin it have mistaken their text- 
book." 

This is one of the world's voices, which must be 
familiar to every ear. A calm inquirer will note the 
tone of extravagance which marks its utterances. 
There is no fastidiousness about terms : no solicitude 
to find out what it is the pulpit condemns, nor upon 
what grounds: no judicial appeal to " the law and 
the testimony" by way of disproving its actual teach- 
ings. The whole indictment is drawn with a slash- 
ing pen ; and the anathema pronounced without 
knowledge, without authority, without misgiving, in 
the face of Scripture, of reason, and of decency. 

The inspiration of such attacks as these comes 
from the same source with the cavils recited in the 
text, the native enmity of the heart to God. But 
there is a secondary agency conspiring to the same 
end which deserves notice. 

Christianity has come to be a great power in the 
world. It counts not merely its churches, but its 
nations : not simply its provinces, but its continents. 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 235 

It can no longer be treated with contempt, as it was 
in the apostolic age. It sits on thrones. It gives 
empires their laws, and administers them. It has its 
presses. When it speaks — and it is speaking all the 
while — it makes its voice heard. Millions worship 
at its altars, and pay it homage in their homes. It 
is no discredit now to follow in its train and shout 
" Hosanna." There is more honor gained by laud- 
ing than by reviling it. The w r orld, therefore, has 
fallen in love with Christianity. It affects religion. 
It rejoices in sermons and sacraments. It goes to 
church punctiliously — of a Sunday morning. It dis- 
courses skilfully of the sermon and the music, — how 
good they are, or how tame. It takes a sort of pride 
in hearing of large benefactions which have been 
made to religious objects. But, after all, it is the 
shadow, not the substance, which attracts it. It is 
not real religion it is smitten with, but a painted idol, 
— a religion of its own fashioning, not the religion of 
Christ and His apostles. The world has no more 
sympathy with a spiritual faith than it had when it 
shouted, "Away with this man, and release unto us 
Barabbas!" It would "be religious. " By all means : 
it is scarcely reputable not " to be religious.'* And 
as long as you will sum up religion in a routine of 
formal observances it will not quarrel with you. But 
beware how you hint at cross-bearing. Beware of 
pressing texts like these : " If any man will come 



236 The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 

after me, let him deny himself." " Ye must be born 
again." H Be not conformed to this world." " Who- 
soever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of 
God." 4t Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen 
you out of the world." " Without holiness no man 
shall see the Lord." 

If you go into the pulpit Sunday after Sunday 
with language like this upon your tongue, or if, as 
a private Christian, you carry it into your intercourse 
with your friends and neighbors, you may lay your 
account to share the reproach of the Baptist. The 
world will tell you : " Thou bringest certain strange 
things to our ears, thou miserable ascetic! This is 
not Christianity. Go, put on thy camel-skin and 
hasten to the desert. That is the only proper sphere 
for a Puritanic prophet like thee !" This it will be 
in the world's heart to say to you, whether it find 
utterance or not. For it no more understands the 
truths you pour into its ears, than the Pharisees un- 
derstood the Baptist. And in so far as it does com- 
prehend, it loathes the requisitions you lay upon it. 
No one pretends that the sentences just quoted from 
the New Testament comprise the whole of Chris- 
tianity. But they are a part of it, an essential part, 
and in perfect keeping with every other line and 
feature. When the world alleges that to press these 
demands is to turn the Gospel of Christ into a sys- 
tem of monkery, it betrays the same ignorance and 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 237 

the same superciliousness which the Pharisees exhib- 
ited towards John. Speaking by the lips of that 
proud party, it told him in effect that his doctrine 
was not of God but of Satan, and therefore unfit to 
be listened to. And it tells you that to talk of bear- 
ing the cross and of declining any of the amusements 
involved in a life of fashionable pleasure, is to show 
that you have mistaken the whole genius of the 
Christian religion. 

Not to advert to the extreme modesty of these 
self-constituted expositors of the Gospel, let it suffice 
to point out the ground of the fallacious judgments 
they are fond of pronouncing upon the evangelical 
system and its adherents. They see but one side 
of Christianity ; and they do not half see that. The 
side of which they get some glimpses is that which 
pertains to its boundless compassion, its love and 
mercy, its pardon, its privileges, its salvation. All 
they know or care to know is, that it brings us a 
Saviour. "Therefore" (so the latent logic runs) "we 
shall be saved. Therefore let us eat, drink, and be 
merry. And therefore hush with your ascetic no- 
tions about renouncing the world." Of the holiness 
of God; of the intrinsic turpitude of sin; of the na- 
ture of the atonement, the new birth, the- ground of 
forgiveness, the duty of self-consecration to God, the 
life-long conflict between the flesh and the spirit, and 
the necessity of " striving" if we would enter in at 



238 The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 

the strait gate, they have little more conception 
than a blind man has of colors, or a deaf man of 
music. They have never sought to learn. Their 
hearts are elsewhere, filled with earthly passions and 
earthly idols. They are compelled to recognize the 
existence of Christianity ; not, it is true, from any 
affinity for it, but as a fact they cannot get rid of. It 
lies across their path. It meets them everywhere. 
It is all around them. And so, forced to acknowledge 
it, they look at it through the colored lenses of their 
own passions, and, very naturally, see nothing which 
may not blend with their own selfish principles and 
predilections. Privilege they can see, but not duty: 
promise, but not service : reward, but not sacrifice. 
He who comes to them enforcing these unthought- 
of requirements preaches an unknown Gospel ; sets 
up a soiled and grim-visaged Christianity, which 
might do for a convent-cell, but never for the cheerful 
haunts of men and women who live to enjoy life. 

Precisely so that generation thought and talked 
of the Baptist. The people flock to him in the 
wilderness, and in trumpet-tones he bids them, " Re- 
pent." When the Pharisees and Sadducees come to 
his baptism, he says even to them, " O generation of 
vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath 
to come ? Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for 
repentance." These burning words would never be 
forgiven by that self-righteous generation. And they 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 239 

avenge themselves by stigmatizing him as a demo- 
niac : " He hath a devil." Yet you and I see how 
grievously they misunderstood him ; how grossly 
they wronged him. Blinded by sin and passion, 
they resented the allegation that they stood in need 
of " repentance." And mutilating his messages, as 
such hearers commonly do, they upbraided him for 
his righteous severity, without heeding the ineffable 
mercy to which it pointed. For what was his mes- 
sage ? "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is 
at hand." " I indeed baptize you with water unto 
repentance : but He that cometh after me is mightier 
than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; He 
shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with 
fire." Here was the glad tidings that Israel had 
been expecting for centuries : their Messiah was at 
hand. And presently He came, and was Himself 
baptized of John in the Jordan. The repentance the 
Baptist preached, was in order to their preparation 
for the Redeemer and all the blessings of His reign. 
It was no "demoniacal" doctrine; no arbitrary, harsh, 
oppressive exaction. They must repent, or they 
would be in no condition to welcome their Deliv- 
erer, in no state to enjoy the privileges of His king- 
dom. Not heeding this, they revile John for bringing 
them the only medicine which could heal their souls. 
And their successors tread closely in their steps. 
For what else does this clamor mean about an " as- 



240 The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 

cctic Christianity;" about clothing religion in sack- 
cloth; and frowning upon recreation; and making 
the way to heaven so narrow that nobody can walk 
in it ? If anybody does this, let them bear the blame. 
But if all you mean be that the pulpit preaches re- 
pentance as John did, and insists upon a separation 
of the Church from the world, then it were well to 
consider whose doctrine it is you are reprobating. 
Peradventure your controversy may be not with man, 
but with God. Nay, there is no peradventure in the 
case. This system which you so injuriously brand 
as austere, unsocial, and disheartening, bears His 
image and superscription. But then it is not what 
you think it to be. There is nothing sullen or for- 
bidding about it. Putting asunder what God has 
joined together, you sever the command to repent and 
the exhortations to a spiritual life, from the scheme 
to which they belong ; and, treating them as isolated 
precepts, complain that the door you are invited to 
enter looks more like the mouth of a sepulchral 
cavern than the gateway to a blooming paradise. It 
may look so — to your eye. Does that prove that it 
is so? Is your impression borne out by the testi- 
mony of any who have passed through this portal? 
Did those who actually received and obeyed the 
teachings of the Baptist ratify the verdict of the 
Pharisees concerning him ? 

When will men learn that the order of the Gospel 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 241 

is the order of nature, while false religions and the 
world reverse it ? With the world, it is like the 
children in the markets, first piping, then mourning; 
the dance first, afterward the funeral. Christianity- 
rectifies this mistaken and pernicious arrangement. 
Its ordinance runs, the Baptist first, then Jesus: 
sorrow first, joy afterward : the sorrow • in order 
to the joy: no joy without the sorrow: but the 
sorrow for a day, the joy for an eternity. This is 
Christianity. This is what the Bible and the pulpit 
mean when they preach repentance and self-denial. 
It is not that the Gospel of Christ is the hand-maid 
of asceticism: nor that it interdicts mirth: nor that 
it proscribes recreation : nor that it includes a single 
precept or prohibition which tends to impair the 
true enjoyment of this life. All allegations of this 
sort are as groundless as were the accusations of the 
Jews against the Baptist and his Master. Proceed- 
ing upon the basis of undeniable facts, it recognizes 
the inherent alienation of man from his Maker, and 
the essential hostility of the world to God. For the 
first, it provides a remedy by liberating man from the 
bondage of sin and bringing him back in penitence 
and faith to his rightful allegiance : for the second, 
by inspiring him with a distaste for such pleasures 
as have upon them the taint of sin, and enlisting 
him on the Lord's side in His warfare with it. And 
in effecting these results, it is so far from sending 

21 



242 The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 

him forth to wander up and down the earth as 
through the dismal galleries of a mine or among the 
graves of a vast cemetery, that it clothes the world 
with a brighter radiance to his eyes, and quickens 
his sensibility to all things good and beautiful, and 
opens to him fresh sources of happiness, and makes 
him feel that there is equal mercy in what his Father 
denies him as in what He. grants, and so trains him 
for his final victory over sin and death and for his 
crown of immortal glory. Here is the issue and end 
of those " gloomy" doctrines which exasperated the 
Jews against the Baptist, and which, possibly, may 
sometimes have stirred your displeasure against the 
sponsors of the evangelical faith. Let the review 
put you upon your guard against taking your views 
of Christianity from those who have not yet learned 
its alphabet, and whose creed will coalesce with any 
type of religion, provided only it demand no sacrifice 
of self-will and no renunciation of the world. 

I have pointed out the radical identity of the hos- 
tility to John and his Master, as answering to the 
essential oneness of their aims and teachings. The 
world is not scrupulous as to the point of its attack 
or its weapons. It only wants an occasion. The 
alleged moroseness of John, or the amenity of Christ, 
— it is all one. Herod and Pilate will strike hands 
here, though bitter foes on every other theatre. 
11 John decried as a fanatic : Christ as a man of 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 243 

the world : see how the world reads characters !" 
Such is the terse comment of an able German writer 
upon this passage. He is correct in attributing both 
judgments to the "world"; and in his satire upon 
the world's sagacity. Imbecility surely reached its 
climax when it denounced Him as a " man of the 
world," who came to die for the sins of the world, 
and whom the world never ceased persecuting 
until it compassed His death ! His crime was, that 
He lived among the people : that He conformed to 
their social customs : that He even consorted with 
publicans and sinners. 

Now let us guard this example from perversion. 
It has been proved that Christianity is not open to 
the charge of asceticism. Had the time permitted, 
it might have been shown that the unique and excep- 
tional mission of the Baptist furnishes no warrant for 
that gigantic system of monasticism which has done 
so much to debase our holy religion. Neither, on the 
other hand, is there anything in the more social habits 
of the Saviour to justify a life of fashionable frivolity. 
If there be Christian professors who would fain vindi- 
cate their devotion to the world by the language He 
uses here, let them note precisely what He does say, 
and then study His life for a faithful exposition of His 
meaning. " The Son of man came eating and drink- 
ing." That is all. The rest is their comment. And 
what a comment ! We need offer no denial of the 



244 Th c World, Arrogant and Capricious. 

gross aspersion they cast upon Him, of gluttony and 
intemperance. But consider the other charge: "the 
Friend of publicans and sinners. " Ah, ye worldly- 
minded professors, is this your character ? When you 
plead the Master's example as an apology for your 
pleasures, are you careful to go into the world as He 
went into it? Are the scenes in which you delight 
such scenes as He would relish ? If He were on 
earth again, would you expect Him to frequent your 
favorite places of amusement? Do you never hear 
His voice in the interludes, asking in a tone of gentle 
reproach that goes through and through you, "What 
dost thou here ?" And has it ever been conjectured, 
either by yourselves or by any one else, that you 
went into the world as the " friends of publicans and 
sinners," to seek them out in their guilt and misery, 
and lead them to virtue and to God ? 

This is one perversion of the Saviour's language 
and example. Another, the antithesis of this, is 
quoted by Himself, and has been often reproduced 
since. The formalism of His day could not tolerate 
His familiar association with the people: it made 
Him "a glutton and a wine-bibber. ,, This is only 
another stream from the same fountain. It is the 
same world which speaks by the self-righteous for- 
malist, and the pleasure-loving enthusiast who is 
bent upon serving God and mammon. Now, as of 
old, there are those who make religion to consist in 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious, 245 

a punctilious observance of forms and rites : who 
withdraw from society ; disdain even to hold fellow- 
ship with disciples who have not learned their shib- 
boleth ; and frown upon cheerfulness as almost a sin. 
Legalists they are, who distrust the doctrines of 
grace as of hurtful tendency. They are afraid of a 
free salvation; a salvation tendered alike to all classes 
of men, the worst no less than the best, solely on the 
ground of the Redeemer's blood and righteousness. 
They cling to the idea of human merit ; and are (as 
they complacently imagine) weaving out of their 
own performances a comely web of goodness, which, 
with some help from Christ, will hide all their de- 
formities at the last day. 

A sad thing it is that these people should not 
have their eyes opened to discover that their Chris- 
tianity is a body without a soul. The moment you 
take away from a religious system an atoning Sa- 
viour as the sole ground of justification, and a re- 
newing Spirit as the only source of holiness, strength, 
and comfort, you reduce it to the level of a mere un- 
inspired philosophy. It loses all capacity to satisfy 
the cravings of the human heart. It is stripped of 
all power over the conscience. Mistaking form for 
substance, and blind to all the spiritual glories of the 
Gospel, it sees nothing good beyond its own narrow 
pale, and has neither heart nor hand to succor a per- 
ishing world. Engrossed with its mint, anise, and 

21* 



246 The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 

cummin, its selfishness grows apace. Pluming itself 
on its supposed favor with God, it cries, " I thank 
Thee that I am not as other men are!" And shun- 
ning the touch of the poor publican by its side as 
pollution, it leaves him, and all like him, to get to 
heaven as they may, — its crown is sure. Of this 
type were the proud sectaries who could see only a 
low sensuality in the gentle, loving intercourse of 
Jesus with His fellow-men. And their lineal succes- 
sors are with us to this day. Let them understand 
that Christianity is not the feeble, sickly thing they 
would make it. It does not spurn the nourishment 
of the cloister in its time and measure. Nor does it 
contemn the trivialities of the law. Nor yet will it 
disparage the devout observance of appropriate forms 
of worship. But it is of too robust a nature to be 
kept in a cell and fed on herbs. It was formed for 
society. It came to live among men ; to go where 
they go and stay where they stay ; to sit down with 
them in their houses, their schools, their shops, 
their warerooms, their mills, their ships, their courts, 
and their cabinets ; to surround them with its pres- 
ence, to fill them with its purity and love, to cheer 
them with its consolations, to train them for its ever- 
lasting rewards. This is the mission of Christianity. 
And those who gather their robes around them as it 
passes by on its God-like errand, and cry, " Gluttony 
and wine-bibbing !" would do well to ponder that 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 247 

fearful malediction, " Woe unto you, scribes and 
Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye shut up the kingdom 
of heaven against men: for ye neither go in your- 
selves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to 
go in!" (Matt, xxiii. 13.) 

It has been the principal aim of this discourse to 
exhibit the injustice, the bigotry, and the capricious- 
ness of the world, in its relations with genuine re- 
ligion. The subject is replete with practical lessons. 
Some of these have been incidentally glanced at. 
Of the many which remain, the time forbids me to 
present more than a very few. 

The first is, the utter incapacity of the world to 
sit in judgment upon spiritual things. 

Never could it have a more eligible opportunity 
for testing its skill. The Baptist and his Master 
appeared openly before men. The world saw them, 
heard them, observed their manner of life, and had 
the Scriptures to guide them in framing an estimate 
of them. And what was its verdict? Of John it 
said, "He hath a devil ;" of Jesus, "He is a glutton." 
Wondrous penetration ! Surpassing wisdom ! And 
after all, this deeply mortifying, humbling lesson was 
lost upon it. The world is still arrogating the same 
jurisdiction over questions of theology and worship, 
of faith and practice ; and repeating the same error. 
Nay, the less it knows of a religious topic, the more 



248 77/ c World, Arrogant and Capricious. 

pragmatical it is. Its dogmatism is inversely as its 
knowledge. Christianity will probably survive the 
assaults of men whose assurance in dictating to the 
pulpit where it should stop in discriminating between 
the Church and the world, is quite in keeping with 
the fact that, if they had been living at the time, they 
would have branded John as a fanatic and Christ as 
a voluptuary. 

2. We have here a warning against prejudice and 
passion in judging of Christian ministers. 

The goodness and wisdom of God are strikingly 
manifested in the diversity of gifts and graces with 
which His ambassadors are endowed. It was thus 
with the ancient Prophets. It was thus with the 
apostles. It has always been so with the ministry. 
With the endless variety of people they have to deal 
with, no other arrangement would answer. One 
must be argumentative, another imaginative. One 
must be stern, another gentle : one vehement, another 
temperate : one pungent, another persuasive : one a 
son of thunder, another a son of consolation. Do 
you always remember this ? Possibly you may. 
But there are persons who do not; persons who dis- 
pose very summarily of ministers and their reputa- 
tion, when they happen not to preach to their taste. 
But with how little reason! Would you have re- 
jected the Baptist because his strain was so unlike 
his Lord's? Would you have spurned the massive 



The World, Arrogant and Capricious. 249 

logic of Paul because he lacked the eloquent tongue 
of Apollos ? Would you have silenced the tender, 
affectionate John because he had not the impetuosity 
of Peter? These preachers that you depreciate have 
their gifts and their mission from the same source 
with your own favorite ministers. " All these work- 
eth that one and the self-same Spirit.' , And this is 
reason enough why they should have your benedic- 
tion, not your censure. 

3. It should neither surprise nor deject the disci- 
ples of Christ if they encounter misapprehension and 
obloquy. 

How can you expect to escape reproach from a 
world that traduced your Master as a glutton and 
wine-bibber? The spirit of the world, as we have 
seen, is unchanged. If at any time it should malign 
your motives and misrepresent your words and 
actions, remember His benison, " Blessed are ye, 
when men shall revile you ... for my sake." 

Something still harder to bear may fall to your 
lot. You may be misunderstood, and defamed, and 
cast off without cause, not by your enemies, but by 
your friends. But even then " no strange thing will 
have happened to you." Your Master drank of this 
cup also. And as long as you keep a good conscience, 
He will enable you to drink of it, and that, too, with 
prayer for those who have put it to your lips. 

4. "Wisdom is justified of her children." 



250 The Worlds Arrogant and Capricious. 

This is our Saviour's reflection on presenting this 
picture of the perverseness and impiety of that gen- 
eration. The truly wise, those who are " taught of 
God," will vindicate the ways of God to man, both 
in His providence and in His grace. And " let those 
who are justified by Christ before God, justify Him 
by their lives before the world." 



PLOUGHING IN HOPE. 



I. Corinthians ix. 10. 



" That he that plongheth should plough in hope" 

The apostle's argument in this chapter is of the 
right of the ministry to an adequate support. This 
right he establishes by the principle which lies at 
the foundation of society, that the laborer is worthy 
of his hire : from the recognition of the principle in 
the Old Testament even in its application to beasts 
of burden : from its essential equity: from the com- 
mand of Christ : and by various other arguments. 
As I have no intention of taking up the subject with 
which he is dealing, it will be unnecessary to notice 
these topics. The text is introduced thus: "It is 
written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle 
the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. 
Doth God take care for oxen ? Or saith He it alto- 
gether ^assuredly'] for our sakes ? For our sakes, 
no doubt, this is written : that he that plougheth 
should /plough in hope; and that he that thresheth 

251 



252 Ploughing in Hope. 

in hope should be partaker of his hope." That is to 
say, this command about oxen was chiefly given for 
our sakes, — for man's sake; to recognize the princi- 
ple that "the laborer is worthy of his hire;" that so 
men may go about tjjeir work with the expectation 
of being benefited by it; that he that plougheth may 
plough in hope, and he that thresheth in hope may 
be partaker of his hope, — i.e. % of what he hoped for. 
This needs no expositor. It comes home to every 
one's experience. When you go into the country 
and see the farmers driving their ploughs, you have 
no occasion to ask them why they are turning up 
the soil. You understand as well as they that it is 
the crop they have in view. If it were not for the 
hope of the harvest they would forego this toil. 
And what is true of the farmer is true of the mechanic, 
of the manufacturer, of the tradesman, of people of 
all occupations and conditions. Men are swayed by 
an endless variety of motives, good and bad ; but the 
one element which blends with all other springs of 
action is hope, — the desire and expectation of future 
good. To descant on its universal prevalence, and 
its potential efficacy in human affairs, would be quite 
superfluous. St. Paul takes the plougher as a repre- 
sentative character. He would teach us that even 
in worldly matters God has so linked labor with its 
reward, that every man who wisely and diligently 
pursues his work may reasonably hope for an auspi- 



Ploughing in Hope. 253 

cious result. It may be useful to us to consider the 
same principle in its application to the religious life 
and the service of God generally. The spiritual, no 
less than the natural husbandman, has ample reason 
to go on with his work in hope. That is to say, in 
doing the Divine will, whether in a public or private 
station, whether on a broad or a humble scale, 
whether in the way of action, of suffering, or of silent 
waiting, we have ground to hope for a beneficial 
result. It may not be just the result at which we 
have been aiming. It may even be something very 
different — in time, and mode, and measure. Herein 
the case differs from that of the ploughman, who 
can always forecast the nature of his crop from the 
seed. And yet the difference is rather apparent than 
real. For the spiritual husbandman does after all 
reap what he sows. He reaps a spiritual harvest, 
though it may not be precisely the harvest he had 
counted upon. 

If we inquire into the grounds of that hope which 
should animate all true workers in this field, it may 
be observed that they are doing what their Heavenly 
Father has directed them to do. Our Saviour said, 
on a certain occasion, " My meat is to do the will of 
Him that sent me, and to finish His work." We are 
every one of us sent into the world on a similar 
errand, — i.e., to do the will of Him who placed us 
here. Had our first parents preserved their integ- 



254 Ploughing in Hope. 

rity, the whole race would have recognized this as 
the only rule of duty, and would have conformed to 
it. The few who do try to conform to it are fulfilling 
the end of their being. They are living not for 
themselves, but for God. With very much of im- 
perfection, with many errors and many falls and daily 
sins which call for daily humiliation, they are never- 
theless essaying to take His will for their guide, and 
His glory for their end and aim ; and they must be 
hopeful as to the issue. This is not a matter of 
choice. It springs from a law of our nature. An 
approving conscience is always and necessarily asso- 
ciated with the Christian hope; and the life we are 
considering, is a life which conscience does approve. 
Nor this alone. The very existence of a sentiment 
like hope implies that it must come into play on 
occasions of this sort. Why are we made suscepti- 
ble of hope, unless it is to be called into exercise 
when we are doing what God requires us to do? 
Would the Author of our nature thwart His own 
work, by forbidding hope to seek its supreme reward 
and bliss in Himself? Would He so deny Himself 
as to make this sweet, sustaining, transforming affec- 
tion the exclusive dowry of the careless and the 
ungodly ? 

This language is not too strong. We affirm the 
right of the believer, and of all who have their faces 
Zionward, to labor or suffer for God in hope, because 



Ploughing in Hope. 255 

He " cannot deny Himself." In His infinite conde- 
scension He has been pleased to link His own glory 
with the toils and trials, the prayers and praises, of 
His people. To an eye capable of taking in its vast 
proportions, our globe must present a busy scene. 
The teeming millions who crowd its surface are per- 
vaded with an intense and restless activity. But 
amidst all this mighty play of human passions; 
amidst the literature and the science, the agriculture 
and the commerce, the politics and the wars, of 
mankind, there is one interest which in God's view 
overshadows all others, a single movement going 
forward upon which He lavishes a care and a sym- 
pathy denied to everything else. We may not assert 
that the overthrow of an empire or the founding of a 
dynasty is a matter of no moment in His esteem : but 
we are warranted in saying that events of this kind 
are of small moment with Him as compared with 
changes in the condition of the Church ; and, indeed, 
that He orders or permits those very events, with a 
continual reference to His Church. Not to enlarge 
upon this inviting theme, enough that our Saviour 
has shown His estimate of the most trivial services 
rendered the Church, by proclaiming that the mere 
giving of a cup of cold water to a disciple shall not 
fail of its reward. We are sure, then, that He looks 
with approbation upon the efforts of His people to 
follow and to serve Him ; and that in doing this, they 



256 Ploughing in Hope. 



have more reason to be hopeful than in attempting 
any other service whatever. 

But you will regard me as arguing a self-evident 
proposition. Let us rather consider the lesson of 
the text in its bearing upon various parts of the 
Christian life. 

To begin at the beginning, — our first plougher 
shall be one who is just awaking from the sleep of 
sin, and pondering the question, " Shall I now attend 
to the matter of my personal salvation ? Can I hope 
to secure this greatest of blessings ?" Many an 
one, brought to this point, has been discouraged by 
the apparent obstacles in the way, and declined the 
effort. Had it been an earthly scheme, they would 
not have abandoned it. Men do not so lightly forego 
the prospect of wealth and honor. In those conflicts, 
they gather resolution from difficulties; and failures 
only prompt to fresh exertions. But where the soul 
is concerned, the quest is too often relinquished on 
the vague report that u there is a lion in the way." 
I do not mean to intimate that there are no actual 
impediments between the unconverted soul and 
salvation. There certainly are very serious ones. 
Without striving, there is no entering in at the 
strait gate. But is this peculiar to religion ? Do 
you win any earthly prize without striving ? Do 
the ordinary avocations of life cost you no effort? 
And those who have written their names high up 



Ploughing in Hope. 257 

among the great captains, the great statesmen, the 
great philosophers, of the race, have they reached 
that eminence without toil and sacrifice ? 

Why, then, complain that Christianity denies its 
treasures to the torpid and the indifferent? The 
blessings it proposes to us are as much superior to 
the noblest distinctions of the world, as the heavens 
are higher than the earth. And it would be reason 
enough why all should strive after them, if it were 
absolutely certain that only one in a thousand could 
succeed. But so far is this from being the case, that 
there is no line of research, no path of effort, no form 
of labor, in which we have so much ground to an- 
ticipate a favorable result. There is nothing a man 
may go about more hopefully than an honest and 
faithful endeavor to obtain forgiveness and reconcil- 
iation to God. How can you help seeing this ? You 
need not send your thoughts beyond the walls of 
this sanctuary to find a demonstration of it which 
clothes it as with a sort of mathematical certainty. 
For what means this day of rest, this house of wor- 
ship, these Christian ordinances, this precious Bible 
revealing a crucified Saviour, a throne of grace, and 
an ever-present, compassionate Spirit? And what 
means this company of renewed sinners, your friends 
and neighbors, once enslaved to sin, and now, as they 
humbly hope, pardoned and saved? Here, surely, 
is proof enough that God taketh no pleasure in the 
22* 



25S Ploughing in Hope. 

s _ 

dcatli of the sinner; that He delighteth in mercy; 
that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, 
and that him that cometh to Christ He will in no 
wise cast out. What would you more ? If, with 
these testimonies around you, you cannot " plough 
in hope," if you do not feel that there is enough here 
to encourage you in an earnest and persevering effort 
to seek peace and pardon at the cross, you will be 
likely to wait until all that now invites you to hope 
gives place to remediless despair. 

But coming to Christ is only the first step : it is 
simply securing the charter and the gracious equip- 
ment which prepare us to begin the work of life. 
The ploughing must go on. The field is large, 
and much of the soil intractable. But the allotted 
task can be accomplished, provided only we keep up 
a good heart as we tread the weary furrows, and 
" abound in hope.'* You will know what is meant 
by this " intractable soil." Look at the human heart, 
even the renewed heart, and see what a work is to 
be done there before it can "bear the image of the 
heavenly !" The very holiest men have deplored with 
bitter tears the strength of their indwelling corrup- 
tions. The confessions of David and of Paul are re- 
newed every day in ten thousand solitudes, where the 
only ear is that one which " heareth in secret." In 
whatever just esteem a Christian may be held by his 
brethren for the general excellence of his character 



Ploughing in Hope. 259 

and life, he feels that there is an immense distance 
between himself and his Divine Pattern, and that 
there can be no respite from his warfare until this 
mortal shall have put on immortality. This whole 
work of self-discipline must needs be arduous and 
painful, because it is in the face of nature. Its aim 
is the subjugation of nature. The old nature and 
the new struggle together. Both are strong. Some- 
times one gets the mastery, and sometimes the other. 
But on the whole, the old nature loses ground; and 
it is important we should feel that it must in the end 
yield to the powerful agencies which are enlisted on 
our behalf against it. 

We need this conviction as a stimulus to effort. 
You have to deal, e.g., with some wayward passion, 
some obliquity of" temper, some inexorable habit. It 
has led you captive during your years of vanity : and 
now in entering upon the service of a new Master, 
with aspirations after a new life, it still hampers and 
vexes you. You are well aware that it is more than 
a match for your own strength. But you must also 
understand that you henceforth bring into the con- 
test auxiliaries which insure your ultimate victory. 
It was not forgiveness merely which your Heavenly 
Father had in view in bringing you to the cross, but 
deliverance from sin. " This is the will of God, even 
your sanctification." It is part of His plan that "you 
should be holy and without blame before Him in 



260 Ploughing in Hope. 

love." And what He purposes, He can and will ac- 
complish. Made one with Him, united to Christ as 
the members to the head, they have a covenant-right 
to look to Him for constant succors. He bids them 
look to Him, that they may " obtain mercy and find 
grace to help in time of need." They are equally cer- 
tain of His aid, whether in their general warfare with 
sin, or in resisting some specific sin. It may be an 
irascible, a vindictive, or a sullen temper. It may be 
some carnal or mercenary passion. It may be pride 
or vanity or levity. It may be a prevailing worldli- 
ness of mind and forgetfulness of God. Tis all one. 
There is nothing in the case which need discourage 
them. Let them " plough in hope." The annual 
harvest is not more certain than their success, pro- 
vided they imitate the husbandman in using the pre- 
scribed means of success. They and he stand upon 
the same ground, alike dependent upon the same be- 
neficent Power, and equally sure of His intervention 
if they invoke it. 

This point, like the other, is demonstrated before 
our eyes, as it is also interwoven with the entire life 
of the Church. For God is carrying all His chil- 
dren along this pathway. They every one have their 
evil dispositions to contend with, and by slow de- 
grees, with many lets and reverses, they gain the 
better of them. In numerous instances the tri- 
umph is so marked as to attract deserved notice. 



Ploughing in Hope. 261 

We have all seen the proudest men clothed with 
humility; the profane become patterns of godliness ; 
the passionate put on the gentleness of the lamb ; 
even the parsimonious turned into generous givers. 
If questioned on the subject, they would with one 
voice say, M Not I, but the grace of God which 
was with me." They assailed their several sins with 
vigor, trusting in the Divine promise for succor; 
and they were not disappointed. They " ploughed 
in hope," and were made " partakers of their hope." 
And thus will it be with all who tread in their 
steps. 

We may extend the application of this principle. 
It deeply concerns parents and teachers to understand 
it, and all who have to do with the training of the 
young. How disheartening this work is, may be 
seen in the ill success which so often attends it. 
With many children, it is true, it is simply an office 
of pleasure, involving just enough of care and solici- 
tude to keep one's faculties in a state of healthful ac- 
tivity. But you are happy if you have known only 
examples of this sort. It often falls to the lot of 
parents and teachers to have to do with children of a 
very ungracious type. Whether from an hereditary 
virus, misgovernment, corrupt associations, or other 
cause, they exhibit qualities which sorely tax your 
skill and patience. They are petulant, perhaps ; they 
are envious; they are revengeful; they are untruth- 



262 Ploughing in Hope. 

ful ; they are irreverent and profane. Or, possibly, 
they are just listless, lazy, without ambition, without 
self-respect, without affection, and indifferent to all the 
ordinary motives of human action. What shall be 
done with these untoward creatures? What is done, 
frequently, is to leave them to themselves. Society is 
infested with men and women who had their place as 
children among some of these ungainly classes ; and 
who, given over as intractable by their natural guar- 
dians, grew up, as it were, at random. The fruit 
answers to the culture. Their early infirmities have 
ripened into vices ; and the habits which were barely 
endurable in their youth, are intolerable in their 
manhood. 

The Scriptures teach " a more excellent way" : 
"That he that plougheth, should plough in hope." 
It will be conceded that the field here indicated is 
not very attractive. One would not choose for his 
ploughing a common that was overrun with bram- 
bles, or a hill imbedded with stones and matted 
roots. But if that happens to be your only inherit- 
ance, you have no alternative. And many a farmer 
has transformed just such a plantation into a scene 
of surpassing fertility. These uninteresting children, 
so dull and torpid ; these malicious children ; these 
deceitful children ; these coarse, unkempt children ; 
it matters not what they are, they belong to your 
patrimony: at least they are, for the time, committed 



Ploughing in Hope. 26 



o 



to your guardianship. It is idle to look abroad and 
say, with a sigh, " Oh, that this or that child had 
been confided to me instead!" God has given you 
this field to plough ; and however ungenial the task, 
He has bid you " plough in hope." For consider that 
He who has made nothing in vain, could not have 
designed that these children should remain in per- 
petual bondage to their wayward tempers and re- 
pulsive habits. The very dullest of them has an 
intellect susceptible of an indefinite culture and ex- 
pansion. The most perverse may be tamed into 
obedience. The most insensible is not absolutely 
destitute of generous susceptibilities. It does not 
lie on the surface, but there is gold in every one of 
these placers ; and there is a way in which it may be 
got at and refined. Not a fixed, uniform process, 
equally suited to all cases. But some way adapted 
to each, which, if faithfully pursued, will lead to the 
desired end. To believe this, heartily and stead- 
fastly to cling to it, is the great necessity of the 
case. For effort without hope is sure to be lan- 
guid and abortive. While the labor which is 
nourished by hope is energetic and, ordinarily, 
successful. 

And is there anything in the sort of problems here 
presented which should prevent your " ploughing in 
hope" ? The question may be answered by another : 
"Is there any thing too hard for the Almighty?" 



2 54 Ploughing in Hope. 

For no one expects these children to be roused into 
action, to be toned down into submission, to be 
cured of their vicious propensities, to be moulded 
into shapes of symmetry and beauty, except by the 
help of a superhuman arm. But God can do it. 
And He can do it through your agency. For He 
can impart the needful wisdom, the patience, the 
gentleness, the firmness, the affection, the faith: 
whatever the task may demand, He can bestow it 
all. With His word for your guide, His promises 
for your encouragement, and His Spirit for your 
Strengthener and Comforter, you have no right to 
abandon your task as hopeless. It is not hopeless. 
There are families here, I doubt not, in which just 
such children have, by God's blessing, been recov- 
ered from their waywardness, or their lethargy, and 
trained to honor and usefulness. There must be 
teachers here both of Sunday- and day-schools who 
have, by wise, patient, and prayerful effort, reclaimed 
the most trying pupils, and sent them back a blessing 
to their homes and to society. And they will tell you 
that they have their reward : that they have some- 
times rejoiced more over one of these reformed and 
renovated scholars, than over ninety and nine that 
have cost them no anxiety. The essential thing (as 
they have found it) is, not to be discouraged. Never 
give up the very worst child. Plough in hope. And 
go on ploughing in hope. Only plough as the Great 



PI oic g king in Hope. 265 

Husbandman has bid you, and sooner or later you 
may look for your harvest. 

" The precious grain can ne'er be lost, 
For grace insures the crop." 

And if it be thus with teachers and parents, so also 
with ministers of the Gospel. No one can under- 
stand, except from experience, the greatness of their 
work, or the trials and discouragements which are 
incident to it. The writings of St. Paul abound 
with allusions to this subject, many of them personal 
to himself, but others pertaining essentially to the 
pastoral office. Not to enlarge upon the topic, let it 
suffice to advert to the native antipathy of the human 
heart to that truth which it is the prime function of 
the Christian minister to dispense ; the indifference 
with which many receive it at his lips, amounting at 
times to undisguised aversion ; the worldliness and 
negligence so often manifested even by those upon 
whom he has a right to rely for sympathy and aid; 
and his own conscious unfaithfulness and unfitness 
for his high duties. Is it surprising that pastors 
should be found shrinking from their work, and cry- 
ing with Moses, " O my Lord, send, I pray Thee, by 
the hand of him whom Thou wilt send"? 

But what can they do? What ought they to do? 
They bear a Divine commission. They preach a 
Divine Gospel. The truth they proclaim is precisely 

23 



266 Ploughing in Hope. 

suited to its end. It is the only cure for the world's 
maladies, the only means for bringing men back to 
God. They must publish it. And they may well 
publish it in hope. Appearances may be adverse; 
the soil hard and arid ; the skies without rain or 
dew ; weeds and thorns where they looked for grain. 
But there is no alternative. And precisely such 
conditions as these have often been followed by a 
generous harvest. It has proved thus even amidst 
the appalling wastes of paganism. The servants of 
God have plied their work among crowds of igno- 
rant and brutalized heathen, within the very shadow 
of idol temples. And however the blessing may 
have been delayed, by and by there has been " the 
sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees," 
and the Spirit has come down in power upon the 
slain, and the dead have lived again. If there be 
any class of men in the world who ought to "plough 
in hope," it is the ministers of the Gospel. And so, 
by parity of reasoning, all who are engaged in the 
same work of leading sinners to Christ and building 
up His Church. This field is full of laborers; not so 
full that there is not room for more; but there is a 
great army of them essaying in various ways to help 
forward the cause of true human progress. There 
arc the Christian teachers already mentioned; col- 
porteurs; tract and Bible distributors ; philanthropic 
men and women who labor in hospitals and asylums, 



Ploughing in Hope, 267 

in the lanes and alleys of the cities, along the high- 
ways and hedges. There are the faithful disciples 
who are seeking by private conversation, by corre- 
spondence, and other means, to lead their friends to 
the Saviour. For all these workers, whether on the 
broad theatre of the world or in seclusion, there is 
ample encouragement. Let them ''plough in hope." 
The cause they have at heart is God's cause. His 
eye is upon them. His ear hearkens to their inter- 
cessions. Even though they may not in every in- 
stance accomplish their immediate object, He will 
not let them labor in vain. In the end they will 
have their reward. 

Especially will this be the case with those who 
make it a part of the real business of life to seek the 
conversion of their fellow-sinners. There are such 
Christians. They are always on the alert for oppor- 
tunities of this kind. They always have some one 
in view for whom they are offering earnest prayer, 
and whose attention they are striving to draw to the 
" one thing needful." This will not necessarily be 
by direct approach. Before it comes to this, there 
may be a long and needful preparation in the way ot 
friendly intercourse and mutual esteem. With a wise 
discretion, they will turn to account their common 
studies and occupations, their disappointments, their 
recreations, the incidents of every-day life, copying 
herein the example of the blessed Master, who 



2 6S Ploughing in Hope. 

" Would do all things, would try all ways; 
By words, and signs, and actions, thus 
Still seeking not Himself, but us." 

And they who do this, who make the conversion 
of sinners one of the cherished ends of life, not only- 
have full warrant to " plough in hope," but uniformly 
avail themselves of it. Hopefulness is of their very 
nature. They need no assurance from the pulpit or 
elsewhere that the work they are doing is approved 
of God, for they have the witness in themselves. 
And knowing this, they count with a modest confi- 
dence upon its successful issue. 

There is another field for the application of this 
maxim, covering too many broad acres to be trav- 
ersed now ; but we may just glance at it. I refer to 
the multitudes oi sufferers y — those who are struggling 
with inward conflicts, with poverty, with misfortune, 
with trials which may imperil their daily bread, or 
which may seem to hedge up their path so that they 
are at a loss whither to turn. Such an one may 
sometimes be heard bemoaning his condition in 
tones like these : " He hath led me, and brought me 
into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me 
is He turned ; He turneth His hand against me all 
the day. He hath hedged me about, that I cannot 
get out : He hath made my chain heavy/' (Lam. 
iii. 2.) There is a lesson in our text even for these 
sufferers. It is not in mockery of their troubles, but 



Ploughing in Hope. 269 

with a full appreciation of them, we say, in the face 
of these trials, you must "plough in hope.'' De- 
spair will ruin you. Despondency will paralyze 
you. Hope will bring peace and strength. These 
troubles have not come by chance. They are from 
the hand of an infinitely wise and merciful God. 
Painful as they are, they cannot be more so than 
the calamities with which He has been pleased to 
prove the faith and constancy of eminent believers, 
from the time of the patriarchs until now. They 
trusted in Him and He delivered them. He will 
deliver you. This night must have its morning. 
This wall of hewn stone across your path has its 
wicket-gate. When His ends are answered all will be 
well. " It is good that a man should both hope and 
quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." (Lam. iii. 
26.) Satan will if possible prevent this. He knows 
his hour, and sets upon the Christian as he did 
upon his Master, in his season of conflict and danger. 
Let the tempted disciple say to him, " Get thee be- 
hind me!" Let him " trust in the name of the Lord, 
and stay upon his God." (Isa. 1. 10.) Let him re- 
member the Man of Sorrows. Let him think of 
Gethsemane and Calvary, and grace will be given 
him to cry, 

" My Saviour, as Thou wilt ! 
All ^hall be well for me : 
Each changing future scene 
I gladly trust with Thee : 
23* 



270 Ploughing- in Hope. 

Straight to my home above 

I calmly travel on, 
And sing, in life or death, 

My Lord, Thy will be done!" 

Still another wide sphere invites our notice in con- 
nection with the text, merely glanced at in the open- 
ing of this sermon, — viz., the importance of this 
principle to the young in prosecuting even their sec- 
ular plans. It is, under God, one of the great secrets 
of success, this " ploughing in hope." No one 
quality has been more uniformly characteristic of 
the world's heroes, both its benefactors and its 
scourges, than hopefulness. You will be able to 
name scarcely a single exception in the long list of 
its eminent philosophers, orators, inventors, navi- 
gators, philanthropists, and captains. If you come 
nearer home, you will find that the most successful 
toilers in the common husbandry of society,— its 
mechanics, its merchants, its scholars, its profes- 
sional men, — are men who have " ploughed in hope." 
Let their example instruct you. The main thing is 
to assure yourselves that you are in the right path ; 
that your ends and aims have been sought in the 
fear of God, and your powers dedicated to Him. 
With this condition precedent, you may and should 
be hopeful. You will encounter difficulties. There 
is no path through this world which is without rocks 
and thorns ; and they may be very thick along the 



Ploughing in Hope. 271 

road you are to travel. But never despond. Look 
to God for succor, and " plough in hope." Regard 
obstacles as a thing of course. Bend all your faculties 
and summon all the auxiliaries you can command 
to the contest. Take heart from the triumphs of 
others, from the promises of Scripture, and from the 
rewards of eternity. And thus, honestly endeavor- 
ing to make the most of life, "hope on, hope ever, ,, 
and you will live to some purpose. 

I feel that I have done injustice to this text by 
restricting it so much to the present life, to immedi- 
ate, or at least palpable, success, whether in temporal 
or spiritual things. But you will all contemplate it 
in its higher and nobler aspect. It is the blood- 
bought privilege of the Christian always and every- 
where to " plough in hope," because he may be cer- 
tain of his harvest hereafter, even if it fail here. 
Nothing he does for Christ can miss its fruitage 
there. The cup of cold water to a disciple, the 
kindly visit of condolence to the house of mourning, 
the writing of a faithful letter to a thoughtless friend, 
the toil and prayer you bestow upon the young, the 
patience and filial trust you display in struggling 
with the ills of life, — will all receive a glorious recog- 
nition and recompense at the last day. These tran- 
sient labors, these momentary sufferings, — such are 
" the unsearchable riches of Christ,"— lead on to a 
sure eternity of bliss, Well may you plough in hope. 



272 Ploughing in Hope. 

A word more and I have done. There is one 
hope, and only one, that never misleads and never 
disappoints. Its foundation is laid in the blood and 
righteousness of Christ. Its object is the friendship 
of God and the glories of the heavenly state. Its 
muniments are the word and oath of Jehovah. Its 
supports are the promises of the Gospel and the 
ministry of the Divine Spirit. This immortal hope 
blooms only by the cross. Have you been there? 
Have you found it? Have you made it your own? 
If not, give no sleep to your eyes nor slumber to 
your eyelids until you secure it. If you have, bless 
God for the priceless endowment, and consecrate to 
Him the happiness it confers. 

And now, Christian brethren, " may our Lord 
Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, 
who hath loved us and given us everlasting consola- 
tion and good hope through grace, comfort your 
hearts and stablish you in every good word and 
work!" 



THE BALM OF GILEAD. 



Jeremiah viii. 22. 



" Is there no balm in Gilead ; is there no Physician 
there ?" 

Gilead was the name of a large district on the 
east side of the Jordan. It was a pastoral region, 
distinguished, among other products, for certain aro- 
matic simples, from which various sorts of balsam 
were prepared. The efficacy of these agents in re- 
moving disease was so great as to confer a kind of 
medical reputation upon the province. Of this we 
have an example in the 46th chapter of Jeremiah's 
prophecies : " Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O 
virgin, the daughter of Egypt: in vain shalt thou 
use many medicines ; for thou shalt not be cured." 
Our text supplies another illustration. The Prophet 
has been depicting in most sombre colors the wretch- 
edness and ruin which Israel had brought upon them- 
selves. Employing a familiar image, he compares 
the nation to a body covered with ghastly wounds, 

273 



274 *The Balm of Gilead. 

and, apparently, ready to die. The spectacle fills 
him with horror. " For the hurt of the daughter 
of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment 
hath taken hold on me." And then he exclaims, 
"Is there no balm in Gilead ; is there no Physician 
there ? Why then is not the health of the daughter 
of my people recovered ?" 

The allusion evidently is to the power and clem- 
ency of Jehovah. " Is there not healing and deliv- 
erance with God ? Can He not — if you return to 
Him, will He not — stay these judgments and restore 
you to peace and prosperity? Why, then, are you 
not relieved ? Why are the chosen people thus given 
over to reckless impiety and cruel suffering ?" 

Such appears to be the purport of the passage, and 
the explanation vindicates the common adaptation of 
it to the spiritual blessings of the Gospel and the 
Great Physician who applies them. Shall we spend 
a little while in considering the text in this aspect? 

" Is there no balm in Gilead ; is there no Phy- 
sician there ?" 

How much necessity there is for some provision 
of this kind, there needs but a glance at the condition 
of the world to show. A sin-stricken world must 
be the abode of suffering and sorrow. " Man is born 
unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." Every- 
where the race is toiling and groaning under the 
pressure of the primeval curse. Even within the 



The Balm of Gilead. 275 

broad region which feels the ameliorating influence 
of Christianity, sin and woe assert their baleful pre- 
rogative. Every family has, in its turn, to drink of 
the bitter cup ; nor can any individual hope, except 
for a season, to elude the common allotment. 

The need, therefore, of some antidote to this uni- 
versal infliction is equally universal. Appalling as 
our condition may now be, the spectacle of a world 
abandoned to the reign of sin, without any corrective 
or mitigation, would be far more awful. It is an in- 
stance of the Divine mercy for which we can never 
be sufficiently grateful, that " where sin abounded 
grace doth much more abound ;" and that we may 
go through the world and address every suffering 
child of humanity, whatever the nature of his trials, 
with the consolatory words, " Is there no balm in 
Gilead; is there no Physician there?" 

The interrogative form of this statement seems to 
contemplate, not so much cases of want or woe in- 
discriminately as examples of peculiar and signal 
distress. Such examples every community might 
supply. There are families here and there whose 
afflictions have given them a sad pre-eminence among 
their neighbors. Stroke after stroke has fallen upon 
them, until their cup of bitterness seems filled to the 
very brim. They are like the group of lofty pines, 
sometimes to be seen on the crest of a hill, upon 
which every passing thunder-cloud discharges its 



276 The Balm of Gilead. 

bolts, until at length, shattered and blackened by 
this merciless warfare, they fall and are consumed. 
Every one feels how futile it must be to send these 
smitten households to the world for consolation. 
They themselves not only realize the insufficiency 
of any earthly solace, but they may, not improbably, 
surrender themselves to despondency, with the feel- 
ing that their trials are too overwhelming to admit 
of any alleviation. 

A blessed thing it is to be allowed to go to a 
family in these circumstances, and say, "We. will not 
mock you with the tender of such consolations as 
the world may have to bestow. We will not proffer 
you mere human sympathy. But rest assured there 
is balm in Gilead which can soothe your wounds, 
and a Physician there who knows how to apply it." 
This is true even of those trials which, as they are 
marked by no visible ensigns, attract no notice and 
awaken no sympathy. It was long ago said, "the 
heart knoweth his own bitterness." And the older 
we grow, the deeper must become the conviction of 
every thoughtful person, that the hearts are not few 
in number which have some secret sorrow. 

Very many of these examples belong to the realm 
of the affections. Misplaced love, morbid sensibility, 
disappointed hopes, abused or unrequited confi- 
dence, — who can compute the measure of unhappi- 
pess in the world which flows from these sources ? 



The Balm of Gilead. 277 



The most sacred and responsible of earthly ties not 
unfrequently binds together the most uncongenial 
tempers. The precipitancy with which it is formed 
produces its natural result. When the parties come 
to be really acquainted with each other, they awake 
to the fatal discovery that they have made a mistake. 
And this, unless neutralized by an earnest piety, may 
embitter the remnant of their days. Without en- 
larging on a theme which it were profitable to dis- 
cuss only as a warning to those who may be in 
peril of the same false step (a case where, it is 
to be feared, neither warnings nor remonstrances 
would be of much avail), it cannot be doubted that 
there is, in every community, a large amount of 
conjugal unhappiness. Disguised, it may be, from 
curious eyes, and veiled beneath a serene or even a 
cheerful exterior, but the sorrow is none the less 
real. 

Nor is that less real which springs from disap- 
pointed attachments or blighted hopes. The world 
may sneer at the " sentimentalism" of such experi- 
ences. The essential spirit of the world is as coarse 
and cynical where human affections are concerned, 
as it is arrogant and impious in dealing with the pre- 
rogatives of the Deity. It may very well be that, 
in many of the instances we refer to, there is an ill- 
balanced constitution, or that a passion has been 
cherished in opposition to all reason, or that, in 

24 



278 Tlie Balm of Gilead. 

some way, the calamity has been self-imposed. But 
the consciousness of this only increases the bitter- 
ness of the cup ; as it may also prompt to a more 
careful seclusion of it from every eye. In particular 
instances, a sensitive, shrinking nature, which will 
scarcely expose its finer emotions to the gaze of a 
bosom friend, may be the victim of harsh treatment 
or of blasted hopes. Such a nature will turn in- 
wardly upon itself, and nurse the sorrow which is 
consuming it. As it looks abroad over society, 
there is nothing to arouse its ambition or enkindle 
its enthusiasm. Occupation it may find in the cus- 
tomary routine of things; but life is rather endured 
than enjoyed. There is a worm at the core ; and its 
work, though gradual, is as sure as it is insidious, 
unless a merciful Providence arrest it. 

It may be arrested. In all these cases, and others 
affiliated with them, there is one source of relief, the 
efficacy of which is not to be disputed. Remote it 
may be from the established habits and associations 
of those who require it; alien from the sphere in 
which their minds are accustomed to revolve. Yet 
is it not the less adapted to their condition, nor, once 
embraced, would it be the less grateful to them. It 
were a mission of Godlike philanthropy could one seek 
out all these afflicted ones, bowed down with their 
crushed hearts, and languishing under the weight of 
griefs too sacred to be shared by any earthly bosom, 



The Balm of Gilead. 2 79 

and say to them, Is there no balm in Gilead ; is there 
7io Physician titer e ? 

Do not repel the suggestion as either unsuited to 
your state of mind or as unseasonable. What you 
need is a Friend whose sympathy can avail to re- 
lieve you, and whose arm can keep you from sink- 
ing ; a Friend upon whom you can fix your lacer- 
ated affections with a confidence that He will never 
betray you ; and whom you can love with the con- 
viction that your attachment to Him can never be- 
come so absorbing as to be an occasion of self- 
reproach or of sin. Earthly friendships you have 
tried and found them wanting. The void in your 
hearts is greater than ever. And whatever may be 
your experience in other respects, you are satisfied 
that the world is but a broken reed to rest upon. 
Jesus of Nazareth will not disappoint you. Such 
is the essential perfection of His nature, — such its 
boundless amplitude, — that in Him all your griefs 
may be assuaged and all your cravings after happi- 
ness satisfied. Combining in a mysterious union 
the Divine and the human natures, He offers Him- 
self to your confidence as at once " the Mighty God" 
and "the Man of sorrows." The one character pre- 
pares Him to enter into your troubles with all the 
tenderness of a fellow-sufferer; while the other makes 
Him able to remove them, or to sustain you under 
them. His claim upon your supreme love and ven- 



2 So TJie Balm of Gil cad. 

eration has the sanctity which pertains to the rela- 
tion between the Creator and the creature, the Re- 
deemer and the lost sinner. Peradventure, had you 
recognized this claim and given Him that place in 
your affections to which He was entitled, it might 
have averted the trials that now oppress you. You 
refused Him the love which was His due, and He left 
you to bestow it either upon an unworthy object, or 
upon an object which turned to ashes in your arms. 
Painful as the lesson has been, you may yet see that 
it was appointed in mercy to your soul. It required 
a severe discipline to teach you that this w r as not 
your rest ; and that in endowing you with those 
warm and generous affections, God did not intend 
that you should use them as implements of idolatry. 
Nor would He now pursue you with a vindictive 
displeasure. If presumption defeats the true ends 
of life, so does despondency. Your Heavenly Father 
forbids you to despond. Knowing perfectly the 
whole measurement of your distress, with its origin, 
its relations, its aggravations, He says to you, in tones 
of parental authority and gentleness which ought to 
penetrate to the depths of your being, Is there no 
balm in Gilead ; is there no Physician there? 

Go, then, to Gilead. Seek the aid of its Great 
Physician. He will do for you what He did for 
the palsied, and the leprous, and the demoniac, 
who flocked around Him in Palestine, — heal your 



The Balm of Gilcad. 28 1 

wounds, and pour in the oil of consolation, and 
make you feel that you have something to live for, 
and send you on your way rejoicing. 

The moment we pass from the sphere of the affec- 
tions into the realm of spiritual things, new forms of 
suffering meet the eye, as diversified in character as 
they are various in intensity. And here, no less than 
among the tribes of sickness, and sorrow, and disap- 
pointment, we have but too* much occasion to ask, 
11 Is there no balm in Gilead, and no Physician 
there ?" 

With one of these sorrows you must be familiar. 
You have SQQti individuals under the terrors of an 
awakened conscience. God has come near to them 
and set their sins in order before their eyes. In His 
holy law they, for the first time, see their characters 
reflected in their true colors ; and the discovery over- 
whelms them. The celebrated Professor Halyburton, 
of Scotland, has left a very affecting picture of his 
experience in these circumstances : 

" My sins were set in order in the dreadfulness of 
their nature and aggravations ; and all shifts, exten- 
uations, pleas, and defences were rejected, and my 
mouth was 'stopped before God.' All the vain ways 
I had taken for my relief baffled my expectation 
and increased my pain: they were 'the staff of a 
broken reed ;' they pierced my arm when I essayed 
to lean on them, and I was ashamed, and even con- 

24* 



282 The Balm of Gilead. 



founded that I had hoped. The wrath of God was 
dropped into my soul, and ' the poison of His arrows 
drank up my spirits.' All the ways I took to bear 
down my corruptions proved of no avail, for ' sin 
revived, and I died;' yea, 'taking occasion by the 
commandment, it slew me.' I was weary of my life. 
Often did I use Job's words, ' I loathe it, and would 
not live alway.' And yet I was afraid to die. I had 
no rest ; ' my sore ran *in the night,' and it ceased 
not in the day. At night I wished for day, and in 
the day I wished for night. I said, ' My couch shall 
comfort me ;' but there darkness was as the ' shadow 
of death.' I was made to think it a wonder that I 
was not consumed ; and though I dreaded destruc- 
tion from the Almighty, yet I could not but justify 
Him if He had destroyed me. . . . Thus I walked 
about, dejected, weary, and heavy-laden, — weary of 
my disease, and weary of the vain courses I had 
taken for relief, and uncertain what to do, what 
course to take : ' I took counsel in my soul, having 
sorrow in my heart daily.' " 

It is more than possible that these fearful sorrows 
may have been renewed in the experience of some 
who are now present. And how hopeless is it to 
attempt to minister relief to a soul in this condition 
with any mere earthly specifics! They may come 
to you and tell you that you are not the flagrant 
sinner you suppose yourself to be ; that your life has 



The Balm of Gilead. 283 

been honorable and useful ; that you have never 
rejected the Bible, nor turned your back upon the 
Sanctuary ; that you have committed no more sin 
than is chargeable upon all persons indifferently; 
and that, in the worst event, God is a merciful Being, 
and He will surely forgive and save you. All this, 
and much more to the same effect, may be poured 
into your ear, and with the kindest motives ; but you 
feel its penury. It does not reach your case. It 
does not silence the clamors of conscience. It does 
not stay the descending sword of justice. It does 
not arrest the avenger of blood, whose feet you hear 
behind you, approaching nearer and nearer every 
moment. 

Something widely different from this you must 
have before that agitated breast can be tranquillized. 
And the boundless mercy of God proffers you all 
that you need. " Is there no balm in Gilead ; is 
there no Physician there?" Yes, thou heavy-laden 
sinner. Great as thy sins are, there is a greater 
Saviour. Ponderous as is thy burden, what will it 
be to Him whose hand holds up the firmament and 
guides the spheres in their orbits ? Deep as may be 
the crimson-dye of thy soul, the blood which cleansed 
Manasseh, and the dying thief, and Saul of Tarsus, 
can cleanse thee. " It is a faithful saying, and worthy 
of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners, even the chief." The infant 



284 The Balm of Gilead. 

of a day, and the transgressor of an hundred years 
old, alike need to be washed in His atoning blood; 
and it is equally efficacious for the one as for the 
other. He is not a Physician who confines Himself 
to recent and superficial disorders. He cured the 
most chronic and virulent bodily maladies with equal 
ease as the most trivial. And He does no less as 
the Physician of the soul. That wondrous balm of 
Gilead, — He has tried it with every type of malig- 
nant disease to which poor humanity is subject, and 
it has never failed in a single instance. Why should 
it fail in yours ? Only put your case in His hands. 
Go to Him as you are. The worse your condition 
the greater your need of such a Physician. And it 
will be time enough for you to plead the hopeless- 
ness of your case, as a reason for not repairing to 
Him, when, from all the millions of the race since 
the apostasy, you can produce a solitary example of 
a sinner who went to Him to be cured and was 
refused the blessing he sought. 

A second glance around the realm we are now 
traversing reveals another class of sufferers. These 
are the doubting, the tempted, the desponding, — the 
bruised reeds and the smoking flax, — who "desire to 
follow Christ/' and would "give worlds" to know that 
He owned them as His disciples, but who walk in 
darkness. Long accustomed to dwell on their con- 
scious sins and infirmities, their sense of personal 



The Balm of Gilead. 285 

unworthiness forbids them to appropriate the prom- 
ises, and even restrains them from looking, with any 
confidence, to the Saviour. Circumspect in conduct, 
watchful against sin, humble, patient, and forgiving 
in temper, diligent in the study of God's word, earn- 
est in prayer, constant in their attendance upon the 
Sanctuary, they, nevertheless, fear to eat the chil- 
dren's bread ; and if they ever venture to approach 
the Lord's Table, it is with the apprehension that the 
Master may come in and say, " What dost thou here 
without a wedding-garment?" To suggest to them 
that persons so exemplary in character and life need 
not scruple to regard themselves as Christians, will 
no more satisfy them than would the kindred counsel 
already quoted relieve the anxieties of the awakened 
sinner. They know more of their own hearts than 
any other being except God can know, and they feel 
that their sins are great enough to exclude them from 
the high privileges of the redeemed. " How can they 
encourage themselves to hope in the Divine mercy 
when they know that they are so ' full of sin' and 
that their sins are of a peculiar turpitude?" 

This is their feeling ; and a very becoming feeling 
it would be if the system of redemption were what 
they assumed it to be. But the whole current of 
their reflections on this subject is as injurious to the 
Saviour as it is destructive to their own peace of 
mind. Recalling His compassion to the timid and 



2S6 The Balm of Gilead. 

doubting during His earthly ministry, one cannot 
repress the conviction that if He were here again, He 
would be likely to go to these desponding believers, 
one after another, and say to them, " Is there no balm 
in Gilead; is there no Physician there ?" And what 
could you answer Him? I know what would be in 
your hearts, although your lips might not utter it to 
Him. ''Yes, Lord; there is balm in Gilead, and a 
Physician there; but they are not for us." "And 
why/' He might rejoin, "are they not for you ?" 
" Because we are too vile. We have treated Thee 
too basely. Thou hast loaded us with blessings and 
surrounded us with motives and helps to a religious 
life, and sent Thy Spirit often to stir up our con- 
sciences and bring us back to God ; and we have 
repaid Thee only with unbelief and ingratitude, and 
devotion to the world." "And is the balm in Gilead," 
He might respond, " adapted only to those who have 
but contracted the first infection of sin ? Is the 
1 Physician there' able to cope only with maladies 
which lie upon the surface? Is the blood of Christ 
powerless to wash away your sins ? Has He can- 
celled His own gracious proclamation, ' Him that 
cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out' ? Or, 
has He become less condescending and pitiful than 
He was of old ?" 

These doubts and misgivings have their rooting 
in tinbelief y and in unworthy conceptions of the char- 



The Balm of Gilead. 287 

acter of the Redeemer. Conscious ill-desert keeps 
you from going to Christ. But is there anything 
either in His character or in the events of His life to 
justify this feeling? Do you find any apology for it 
in the more than parental gentleness with which He 
bore with the errors and faults of His apostles ? Have 
you imbibed it from the record of His dealings with 
the ten lepers ; with the father of the demoniac child ; 
with Lazarus and his sisters ; with the poor woman 
who stole a blessing from the hem of His garment; 
with Peter, after his denial of Him ; with Thomas, 
after his incredulity? What incident of His life, 
what utterance of His lips, can you lay your finger 
upon as affording the slightest countenance to the 
sentiment of distrust which makes you stand ques- 
tioning whether Christ will not reject you if you go 
to Him? Let the " bruised reeds" be ashamed of 
this unbelief. The character of the Saviour, as you 
contemplate it, is inexpressibly lovely and glorious. 
How, then, can you cherish a feeling so derogatory 
to Him ? How can you say, as you do practically 
say, " There is no balm in Gilead, and no Physician 
there"? 

We are going through a hospital which has many 
wards. Let us stop at one more only. If the anti- 
dote we bear shall serve for that also, we may be 
sure it will answer for the rest. 

It is a dark portraiture which the Spirit has drawn 



2SS The Balm of Gil e ad. 

of man's moral character, when, with a single graphic 
touch of the pencil, he is depicted as having "a heart 
of stone." The skeptic resents the great indignity. 
" A heart of stone ? Look at the virtues which clus- 
ter around humanity! See the integrity and the 
truthfulness, the high-toned honor and the mag- 
nanimity, which embellish society! Witness the 
graceful amenities of life; the inviolate friendships; 
the munificent charities! And let these testify how 
gross a libel that is upon the race, which ascribes to 
man a ' heart of stone' !" 

Granted, all. Make the flattering inventory still 
more flattering, and its every item shall be acknowl- 
edged. The brighter the vestments in which you in- 
fold your idol, the clearer do you bring out the demon- 
stration that his heart is " a heart of stone/' It is of 
his relations God-ward that the Scriptures affirm this 
quality of him. And if anything could add confirma- 
tion to their simple and emphatic arraignment of the 
great criminal, it would be found in the very facts 
invoked to disprove it. For how fathomless must 
be that depravity which can clothe itself in all this 
array of humility and complaisance and generosity 
and gratitude, where man is concerned, and carry 
itself, the while, with a bold, thankless, intolerant 
front towards the Deity! which is all affability and 
sympathy towards the creature, and all disloyalty 
and hardihood towards the Creator! which is in- 



The Balm of Gilead. 289 

stinct with pity where any — the slightest — indica- 
tion of human suffering is presented, and turns away 
without one emotion of tenderness or of compunc- 
tion from Gethsemane and from Calvary ! 

Yes, challenge for man whatever prodigality you 
may of this earth-born virtue, we point triumphantly 
to it as vindicating that humbling and offensive an- 
nouncement of the inspired oracles, that, beneath 
all this specious and winning exterior, he bears in 
his bosom a " heart of stone." 

But we are not now dealing with skeptics. There 
are those who, so far from cavilling at this represen- 
tation, freely concede its truth. They have the testi- 
mony of their own consciousness to its accuracy. 
They know but too well that their hearts are hearts 
of stone ; for they have long found them, in every- 
thing pertaining to the Deity, of adamantine obdu- 
racy. They know that every word of the Bible is 
true, and that it is the only lamp which can guide 
their feet into the way of life ; but they feel an in- 
vincible repugnance to adopting it as their chart. 
They know that all conceivable perfections meet in 
the character of the ever-blessed God ; but they find 
no satisfaction in meditating upon Him. They are 
familiar with the whole scheme of redemption; but 
it yields them no comfort. They are too well in- 
structed in the Scriptures, and have too much con- 
scientiousness, to be at ease while leading a worldly 

2 5 



290 The Balm of Gilead. 

life; and, at times, they recoil with horror from the 
prospect eternity holds out to them; but they do not 
attempt to cheat themselves into the belief that they 
really love that religion which alone can prepare 
them for their last change. It is the burden of their 
hearts that they do not love it. They have reasoned 
with themselves on the surpassing folly and impiety 
of living for this world only. They are convinced 
that Jesus Christ ought to be in their eyes the chief 
among ten thousand; that they ought to enthrone 
Him in their hearts with a grateful and confiding 
devotion ; that they ought to delight in prayer, and 
to find their happiness in doing God's will. They 
long for this. They would make any earthly sacri- 
fice to accomplish it. They have labored and strug- 
gled to bring themselves into this state of mind. 
But all in vain. Their wayward affections will not 
relax their hold of earth at the bidding of reason 
and conscience. That heart of stone yields as little 
to the sublime and touching motives drawn from the 
perfections of Jehovah, from the cross, from the 
judgment and eternity, as the granite rock yields to 
the waves which break over it with the ceaseless 
ebb and flow of the tide. They have read the most 
pungent books. They have listened to the most 
faithful sermons. They have experienced sad and 
monitory providences. But their pathetic complaint 
still is, 



The Balm of Gilead. 291 

" Alas ! my aching heart ! 

Here the keen torment lies ; 
It racks my waking hours with smart. 
And frights my slumb'ring eyes. 

"He offers all His grace 

And all His heaven to me ; 
Offers ! but 'tis to senseless brass, 
That cannot feel nor see. 

" O shall I never feel 

The meltings of Thy love ? 

Am I of such hell-hardened steel 

That mercy cannot move?" 

Here, at least, is a class of sufferers whom no 
earth-born philosophy can reach. There are heights 
and depths in their misery which mock your poor 
measuring-lines, and show how little human wisdom 
and human sympathy can cope with sin and sorrow. 
But are they, therefore, to be abandoned to despair ? 
Far from it. There is a voice from heaven, — let all 
the earth keep silence before it, — which breaks upon 
them in tones of blended reproach and tenderness, 
and says, "Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no 
Physician there?" 

Yes, ye fettered, weary, unblest souls, there is 
balm in Gilead and a Physician there. Your case is 
not hopeless. That heart of stone can be broken in 
pieces. That proud will can be subdued. Those 
intractable affections can be detached from earth 



2Q2 TJie Balm of Gilead. 

and lifted to the skies. The love of Christ may yet 
burn with seraphic ardor in that breast which has 
hitherto refused Him its homage. And in place of 
the ingratitude and distrust with which you have 
requited Him, your joyful protestation may yet be 
heard, <4 Lord, Thou knowest all things : Thou 
knowest that I love Thee." 

These are strange sounds to you. You listen 
with incredulity. If it were any other hinderance or 
trial, you could believe this auspicious result possi- 
ble : because you understand that in any case, all 
must be well with the soul if it do but come to 
Christ. But in your case here lies the very diffi- 
culty. This heart of stone will not consent to come 
to Christ. You are not willing to come to Christ. 
You are convinced that you ought to come. Your 
inward yearning is, " Would to God I might come !" 
But you are not drawn to Him. You stand as if 
chained to the world by some fatal fascination, scorn- 
ing yourself for your folly, and yet unable to burst 
your fetters and cry with the prodigal, " I zvill arise 
and go unto my Father!" 

And is it so that the Gospel of Christ, in its opu- 
lent provision for the wants and woes of humanity, 
leaves all uncared for, a calamity, or, if you will, 
a crime, so appalling as this? Has it no arm of 
mercy to stretch forth to those who would fain 
break away from the thraldom of sin and enter 



The Balm of Gilead. 293 

upon a holy life? Assuredly it has. Listen to its 
words: "A new heart also will I give you, and a 
new spirit will I put within you : and / will take 
away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will 
give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit 
within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, 
and ye shall keep my judgments and do them." 
(Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27.) 

What astonishing words of truth and grace are 
these ! How they seem to have been put on record 
just to meet the very case with which we are deal- 
ing ! The trouble which oppresses you, is an insen- 
sible, callous heart, — a heart which is keenly alive to 
every manifestation of human sympathy, but dead 
to all the munificence of God's bounty; and which 
neither mercy nor wrath can win to the love and 
practice of holiness. Of this very heart the Great 
Physician says, " I will take it away, and I will give 
you an heart of flesh." He never boasts. He never 
deceives. He is able to do all that He offers to do. 
He invites, He solicits, you to entrust that heart to 
His hands. Nay, the very faith which this act im- 
plies is His gift, and He offers to bestow it upon 
you. His Spirit can enable you to believe. He can 
remove your repugnance to the Gospel, and present 
it to you in its true light, as the wisdom and the 
power of God ; and make the Saviour appear so 
glorious in your eyes that you will wonder you could 

25* 



294 Th& Balm of Gilead. 

ever have suffered any earthly love to exceed or rival 
your love to Him. 

Be it so, that your sins are of colossal magnitude, 
and as the stars of heaven for multitude. That is a 
cogent reason for repentance and contrition ; it is no 
reason for declining to accept " the balm in Gilead 
and the Physician there.'' When the Son of God 
expired on the cross, it was to make an atonement 
for sin. Just in proportion as your thoughts rise 
to any proper conceptions of the infinite value and 
efficacy of that sacrifice, will you understand that it 
provides an antidote even for the pride, and the un- 
belief, and the earthliness, and the obduracy which 
have made you feel that while there was hope for 
others there could be no hope for you. 

You " have no real sorrow for your sins." Christ is 
" exalted as a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance 
to Israel, and remission of sins." One glimpse of 
Him whom you have pierced, such as the Spirit can 
afford you, will make streams of penitential sorrow 
burst from that heart of stone as the waters gushed 
from the smitten rock. You " have no faith." But 
can you not cry, " Lord, I would believe. Help thou 
mine unbelief"? You u have no love." Whoever 
loved Him, except as He was loved by Him ? " We 
love Him, because He first loved us." Let Him but 
reveal 1 1 is love to you, and that will " kindle yours" 
as nothing else can. And how can you open that 



The Balm of Gilead. 295 

precious Bible upon your table, and question His 
willingness to own and save you ? " But it cannot 
be" (so you still insist) " that He will receive a wretch 
like me, — so obdurate a sinner, — one who has sinned 
as I have, knowingly and wilfully, and whose heart 
even now is like the nether millstone. " O, thou 
afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted 1" 
Go to Him and see if He will not receive thee. See 
whether thy sins or His compassion be the greater. 
See whether that heart of adamant which mocks 
your puny powers can outmatch Omnipotence. See 
whether that marvel has at length been found, at 
which all the universe would wonder with a great 
astonishment, — a sinner so hopelessly diseased that 
even the Great Physician and the Balm in Gilead 
cannot cure him. No, no ; not such will be your ex- 
perience. Go to the Saviour ; and earth and heaven 
will one day hear you say, 

" Love I much ? I'm much forgiven : 
I'm a miracle of grace." 



THE SAVIOUR, A STRANGER TO HIS 
FRIENDS. 



John xiv. 9. 



" Have I bee?i so long time with yoic, and yet hast thou 
not knozvn me ?" 

Our Saviour had just announced to the twelve 
His approaching departure from them. Thomas, 
interrupting Him, inquires whither He is going, 
and the way thither. Jesus replies, " I am the way, 
the truth, and the life : no man cometh unto the 
Father, but by me." He adds : " If ye had known 
me, ye should have known my Father also : and 
from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him. ,, 
Hereupon Philip exclaims, " Lord, show us the 
Father, and it sufficeth us." "Jesus saith unto him, 
Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast 
thou not known me, Philip ? he that hath seen 
me hath seen the Father ; and how sayest thou 
then, Show us the Father?" 

These are very remarkable words. " God is a 
296 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 297 

Spirit :" and (as we read) " no man hath seen God at 
any time." What could Philip mean by the demand, 
" Show us the Father" ? And still more, what could 
his Master mean by saying, " He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father" ? 

We have reason to believe that when the apostle 
describes the Deity as " the King eternal, immortal, 
iiivisible" he means to be understood literally: that 
God is actually "invisible" to all creatures; that 
neither man nor seraph has ever beheld that spiritual 
essence which constitutes His nature. But during 
the period which elapsed between the fall and the 
advent, He had from time to time honored our globe 
with some palpable manifestations of His presence. 
Every reader of the Scriptures will recall the burn- 
ing bush ; the pillar of cloud and of fire ; the awful 
splendors of Sinai ; the sublime vision of Isaiah when 
he " saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted 
up, His train filling the temple." The Jews inter- 
preted the prophecies as signifying that, under the 
reign of the Messiah, these manifestations would 
become more frequent and decisive. In this view, 
Philip's language is quite intelligible. On hearing 
Jesus say, " Ye have seen Him (the Father) ;" his 
mind reverted to the imposing symbols through 
which the Deity had revealed Himself to their 
fathers. And recalling nothing of this kind in the 
experience of himself and his fellow-apostles, he re- 



29S The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 

plies with the utmost simplicity, " Lord, sliozv us the 
Father: this is all we desire." 

The answer of Jesus carries with it a gentle re- 
proof, made the more effective because addressed to 
him by name. " Have I been so long time with you 
( r u;iu)v f plural), " — literally, "Am I so long time with 
you, my apostles, and yet hast thou not known me, 
Philip ?" As if He had said : " I did not expect this 
from you, Philip. At the very opening of my minis- 
try I took you into the number of my disciples. 
You and your brethren have now been with me for 
three years. And can it be that you do not know 
me ? that you are still ignorant of that union which 
subsists between the Father and myself, in virtue of 
which * I and my Father are one ;' so that he that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father?" 

How much the twelve knew of His nature and 
mission we cannot decide. The complete unfolding 
of the doctrine of His Supreme Deity was reserved 
for the period after His ascension. But He had not 
left Himself without witness during His previous min- 
istry. He had given even the nation at large such 
proofs of His Messiahship, that they were left with- 
out excuse in their rejection of Him. And these 
credentials were largely amplified in the case of the 
few men who were admitted to His personal confi- 
dence, listened to His teachings, saw His miracles, 
and were in daily fellowship with Him. How could 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 299 

they fail to discern the beams of His Divinity? to see 
in His words and works and life, a far more wonder- 
ful " manifestation" of the Deity, than in any of those 
glorious symbols which had ravished the eyes and 
awed the hearts of patriarchs and prophets ? In a 
word, to acknowledge and adore Him as the " Bright- 
ness of the Father's glory and the express Image of 
His Person"? Can we marvel at the mild reproach 
conveyed by His reply to Philip: " Have I been so 
long time with you, and yet hast thou not known 
me?" 

But was Philip alone open to this censure? Is it 
quite certain that there have been no disciples since, 
that there may not be some in our own day, and 
even here among ourselves, whom the Saviour, if 
present, might have occasion to chide for their very 
imperfect knowledge of Him? Let us consider this 
matter. 

In respect to His true nature and exalted rank (the 
very point at which Philip stumbled), there may be 
those around, if not within, the Church, to whom 
He would have but too much reason to say, " Have 
I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not 
known me ?" 

With us all, He has been from our infancy; with 
us by His works, His word, and His Spirit. And 
yet there are some who seem not to have learned 
who and what He is. They have all the testimonies 



$00 TJie Saviour, a Stranger to His Frie7ids. 

on this point which had been given to the twelve up 
to the period of this conversation, and very many 
besides, of a still more unequivocal character. Yet 
they do not know Him. They are still crying, 
44 Show us the Deity, and it sufficeth us." " Show 
us the Deity!" Will you explain, before you press 
this demand further, who it is that has been with you 
all this while ? Turn to His history. Note how 
He speaks of the great Jehovah. " As the Father 
knoweth me, even so know I the Father." " What- 
soever thing the Father doeth, these also doeth the 
Son likewise." " As the Father raiseth up the dead, 
and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth 
whom He will." " All men should honor the Son 
even as they honor the Father." " I and my Father 
are one." Is it possible you should not know who 
the Being is that thus associates Himself with the 
universal Father, and challenges an equality with 
Him? 

Place yourselves by His side, and what do you see 
and hear? He talks about the unseen world as He 
does about this world, without effort or parade, freely 
and familiarly, as One who is equally at home there 
and here. He deals with the powers of nature, with 
diseases of every type, and with death itself, as an ab- 
solute Master with His servants. At His command 
" the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the 
lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 301 

raised up ;" devils are exorcised ; and the boisterous 
sea is hushed to rest. He dies, and nature robes itself 
in mourning, the rocks rend, and the graves open. 
He breaks the bars of the grave asunder, ascends to 
heaven, and pours out the Spirit upon His Church, 
the irrefragable and crowning proof that the Father 
has set His seal to all that He taught and all He 
claimed to be, and yet you do not know Him ! 

Anointed of His Spirit, the apostles go forth to 
publish His name and grace to the perishing nations. 
They repeat His own miracles. They have but to 
pronounce His name, and not only does disease sur- 
render its victims, but the grave opens its gloomy 
portals, and its prisoners come forth into the blessed 
light of day. They hold Him up to a ruined world 
as the only Saviour. And that no sinner may dis- 
trust His ability to " save to the uttermost," they 
proclaim that He is " the true God"; that He is 
" over all God blessed forever" ; that " all the 
angels of God worship Him"; and that even God 
the Father addresses Him in words like these: 
" Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." (1 John 
v. 20 ; Rom. ix. 5 ; Heb. i. 6, 8.) And yet you do 
not know Him ! 

For eighteen centuries the religion He came to 
establish has been the ruling agency in our world; 
the most powerful of all elements in moulding the 
characters of individuals and shaping the destiny of 

26 



302 The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 

nations. With Philip and his companions, when this 
reproof was uttered, it was an untried system. Nay, 
the grand event in which all its efficacy was bound 
up had not taken place. Not so with us. The 
blood of atonement has been shed. God's cure for 
the world's maladies has been tested. And there is 
no one here who can gainsay its virtue, — or if he 
should, millions of witnesses might be summoned 
from the living and the dead to confront him. Just 
in proportion as the world has received and obeyed 
Jesus of Nazareth, it has been blessed with peace 
and happiness: wherever it has rejected Him, it has 
reaped a harvest of sin and sorrow and suffering. 
All this has been passing and repassing before men's 
eyes from the day of Pentecost until now ; and yet 
there are those to whom the Son of God might say 
to-day, " Have I been so long time with you, and 
yet have you not known me?" Consider, I entreat 
you, whether you are ever likely to know Him. If 
such credentials as those which have been glanced 
at do not satisfy you, what would satisfy you ? If 
these do not prove Him to be "one with the Father," 
what form or measure of evidence could establish 
this point? Sad enough would it be if you should 
continue to resist all this light until you are sum- 
moned to 1 1 is bar, to discover too late, amidst the 
overpowering splendors of the Judgment, that to 
see Jesus of Nazareth is to see the Father ; and that 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends, 303 

to be rejected by Him is to be banished from the 
presence of the Lord of Glory. 

But He might find room for this question even 
within the sphere of His own household. 

(1) /;/ respect to the efficacy of His sacrifice. It is 
not meant that any real believer would impugn the 
truth and reality of the atonement. But it is quite 
compatible with a genuine piety, for a child of God 
to entertain at times unworthy views of this great 
transaction. Whether in regard to his own sins, or 
to the sins of some fellow-creature, such an one may 
yield to a culpable distrust concerning Christ's abil- 
ity to 44 save to the uttermost." The recorded expe- 
rience of many believers is chequered with painful 
doubts upon this very subject. Their sense of sin 
is too much for their faith. On the abstract ques- 
tion of the atonement they are firm as a rock. But 
whether it can avail for them ; whether their offences 
do not outmatch its efficacy ; whether their crimson 
guilt will not retain its fatal dye even beneath the 
droppings of the cross, — just here is the point at 
which the Master might look them in the face and 
say, " Have I been so long time with you, and yet 
hast thou not known me?" For with what proofs 
has He not illustrated the sufficiency of His sacri- 
fice ? For four thousand years that the world was 
kept in waiting for it, the offerings that smoked on 
patriarchal and Jewish altars derived from it all their 



304 The Saviour, a Stranger to His F?'iends. 

value. The Bible is filled with testimonies, prophet- 
ical and historical, typical and experimental, to its 
Divine efficacy. In every form of language we are 
told that the Father sent His beloved Son into the 
world to bear our sins ; and that Jesus died even for 
the chief of sinners. In the Fountain thus opened 
for sin and for uncleanness, multitudes of the vilest 
transgressors had been washed from their sins be- 
fore the advent; and others yet more depraved have 
been cleansed since. In numerous instances we 
have seen the mighty transformation with our own 
eyes; nay, we may ourselves have experienced it. 
Every day new witnesses come forward to attest the 
healing virtue of this precious blood. And it is not 
meet that we should, any of us, scruple whether it 
be a sufficient expiation for the sins of the world. 
To do this is not simply to decline the comfort 
which the Gospel tenders us: it is to reproach the 
Saviour with having failed in the work He set out 
to accomplish. For He came to bear the iniquities 
of His people; to deliver them from their bondage; 
and to fit them for heaven. He is able to do this 
for every one of them. He is able to cleanse the 
very foulest sinners, and to make them Kings and 
Priests unto God. And not to believe this, is to ex- 
pose one's self to the reproof from His lips, " Have 
I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not 
known me?" 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 305 

(2) His people may incur the same reproach in 
respect to the benevolence and tenderness of His 
nature. 

The trials of life are a crucible as well to the 
gracious as to the natural affections of the heart. 
The Christian is allowed no exemption from them. 
Sickness and suffering, misfortune and bereavement, 
come alike to the just and to the unjust. And super- 
added to these troubles, the child of God is exposed 
to others peculiar to his own sphere and most diffi- 
cult to bear. I refer, of course, to the Christian 
warfare; the conflict with sin and temptation; with 
the world and Satan. This it is, even more than his 
varied and threatening earthly trials, which inspires 
the pensive sadness of so many of David's Psalms ; 
and which we find repeated in the experience of 
many eminent saints in later times. In both these 
forms of trouble, the natural and the spiritual, the 
soul is apt to faint. Faith is overpowered by sense. 
The oppressed believer cries in anguish, " Why hast 
Thou forgotten me?" M My heart is sore pained 
within me, and the terrors of death are fallen upon 
me." " Make haste, O God, to deliver me : make 
haste to help me, O Lord." 

It is the cry of the affrighted disciples over again, 
" Master, carest Thou not that we perish ?" Yes, He 
does care. Do you think that while He lay calmly 
sleeping in that boat upon the stormy Gennesareth 

26* 



306 The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 

He was ignorant of the tempest that was breaking 
over their frail shallop; or that He was for one mo- 
ment unmindful of those faithful but timid mariners? 
Not less certain is it that He takes note of every 
storm that beats upon the heads of His disciples, 
and that, in His own time and way, He will succor 
them. It may happen — it often does happen — that 
He comes near to His people when they are amidst 
the billows, and seems as though He would pass by 
without heeding their signals of distress. But this 
is only a seeming purpose. He would prove their 
faith and patience, and then He will come to them. 
How can they question it? He "came to bind 
up the broken-hearted/' and to " comfort all that 
mourn." This was essentially the character of His 
personal ministry. You might have traced Him 
throughout Palestine by the crowds of sufferers and 
mourners who followed Him. His was no triumphal 
procession such as princes and conquerors delight 
in ; no bannered array of soldiers and citizens exult- 
ing in victories achieved or anticipated. The train 
that waited upon His steps was made up of the sick 
and the palsied restored or to be restored to health ; 
of lepers pleading to be cleansed and demoniacs 
cured ; of mothers comforted and children shouting 
their grateful hosannas. It mattered not how de- 
graded in condition, or how foul in character the 
suppliant who appealed to Him, the coveted relief 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His F7 r iends. 307 

was never denied. With unwearied labor He sought 
out the needy and succored them. The errors and 
falls of His apostles could not exhaust His patience. 
He entered into the bereavements of His friends as 
though they were His own. He displayed even to- 
wards the sinful and vile a tenderness which showed 
how sincere and profound was His sympathy with 
frail humanity. Everything in His teachings, every- 
thing in His life, exhibits Him to us as the wisest 
and best of Counsellors, the most faithful and com- 
passionate of Friends. 

No one amongst us can be a stranger to these 
things. They were not done in a corner. The 
beautiful narrative which records them is our earliest 
and our latest reading, our hand-book through life. 
And many are the opportunities we enjoy of seeing 
these miracles of mercy repeated as we go along on 
our pilgrimage. "The same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever," the offices of love and sympathy which He 
exercised in Judea, He renews here in our country 
and wherever His name is known. And yet there 
are those who permit themselves to distrust His 
faithfulness or His patience; His power or His pity. 
In the blasting of their earthly plans ; in the great- 
ness of their bereavements; in the turpitude of their 
backslidings, — they secretly, if not avowedly, ques- 
tion whether He has not cast them off, or whether 
they may venture to look to Him again for pardon 



308 The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 

and deliverance. It is common with the afflicted to 
feel that no sorrow was ever like their sorrow. 
Tempted and desponding believers can conceive of 
nothing short of the second death which exceeds 
their troubles. The awakened backslider sees only 
the frown of an angry God. And unbelief will 
thrust its suggestions upon these sufferers in their 
moments of weakness, and raise the doubt in their 
minds whether the Saviour has not forgotten them. 
Sometimes, if they dared, they would cry, " Lord, 
dost Thou not care that I perish ?" 

With how much reason might He say- 1 - and how 
surely would He say — to these doubting souls, 
" Have I been so long time with you, and yet have 
you not known me?" Not one word would He 
utter in disparagement of the severity of their trials ; 
still less a word which might lead lukewarm or fallen 
disciples to think lightly of their sins. He cannot 
but feel these most keenly. No bosom is so sensi- 
tive to ingratitude as His. No one can be so much 
alive to the failings and faults of His friends. The 
oneness which subsists between Him and His disci- 
ples brings home their delinquencies to His heart, 
as a parent feels the misconduct of a child. The 
wounds they inflict must be more painful to Him 
than the rudest assaults of His open foes. Still, He 
would not have them mistake His nature by taking 
Him to be such an one as themselves. While He 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 309 

condemns the sin, He can love the sinner. He 
knows what they ought to know, that His blood can 
avail to cleanse them anew, and to heal their back- 
slidings. He remembers a disciple who defiled His 
throne with the blackest crimes ; and another who 
denied Him in His very hearing with cursing and 
oaths : both of whom, on their repentance, He re- 
ceived into His favor. And, as if marvelling that 
you should forget occurrences like these, so often 
repeated in later days, it is not strange He should 
say to you, " Have I been so long time with you, 
and yet hast thou not known me ?" 

And so with the afflicted and the tempted. Why 
should you distrust Him when He has given you 
no real cause for it? -Is not His hand in this trial ? 
Did He not admonish His people that " in the world 
they should have tribulation" ? Does He put any 
cup of sorrow to their lips which has not first been 
pressed to His own? Is it not in infinite love and 
faithfulness He has sent these trials ? Does He not 
sit by, like a refiner and purifier of silver, to see that 
the fire only purifies without destroying the precious 
ore? Is not the whole history of His Church a 
record of kindred experiences, wherein He has ap- 
pointed His people to "suffer, that they might also 
reign with Him" ? And can you not even now 
hear His mild, reproving voice through your sighs 
and sobs, " O thou of little faith, wherefore didst 



310 The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 

thou doubt?" Do not, then, give Him occasion to 
come again to you with the chiding, " Have I been 
so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known 
me?" 

(3) Another subject in respect to which His peo- 
ple often lay themselves open to this reproach, is 
prayer. 

They pray, and their prayers seem not to be 
answered. What can it mean ? There is the prom- 
ise : "Ask, and ye shall receive." " Whatsoever ye 
shall ask in my name, that will I do." They have 
asked, but have not received. They have asked, 
and He has not u done it." And now they are de- 
pressed and anxious. Repining thoughts begin to 
stir their bosoms. " He hatU forgotten to be gra- 
cious." " My way is hid from the Lord, and my 
judgment is passed over from my God." But does 
He deserve this at your hands? He is the hearer of 
prayer. But has He anywhere engaged to answer 
prayer at once; and in the very mode and measure 
that our wishes would prescribe ? This would be to 
make us the arbiters of our own destiny. It would 
be taking the sceptre out of His hands, and dictating 
the course of His providence towards us. Is there 
any Christian who would assume the responsibility 
of deciding just how and when his prayers should 
be answered ? The very nature of prayer implies 
that this is the sole prerogative of Him to whom 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 3 1 1 



our supplications arc addressed. His promise to 
answer prayer, involves no abandonment of His 
right to decide upon the mode and measure of I I is 
answer. This He must do not only in virtue of I lis 
Sovereignty, but in justice to His people. It were 
no kindness to them to consult only their wisdom 
and their wishes in granting their requests. The 
prayer of Philip was, u Lord, show us the Father." 
The Saviour answered it; but it was in His own way, 
not in Philip's way. Do you side with the disciple 
or the Master here? And if with the Master, why 
should it surprise you that He treats your petitions 
in the same manner? He has done this from the 
day He promised a Deliverer to our first parents in 
the garden until now. Not to know it, is to be 
ignorant of the history of prayer and promise. And 
not to heed it, is to give Him occasion to say, 
il I lave J been so long time with you, and yet hast 
thou not known me?" 

(4) The fear of death is another of the experiences 
in respect to which His people often expose them- 
selves to this reproach. 

It is natural to fear death. The Bible aside, it is 
reasonable. Why should we not fear a change which 
sunders all earthly ties, and ushers the disembodied 
spirit into an unseen and unknown world? a change 
which summons the soul into the presence of its 
Maker to have its eternal state irrevocably decided ? 



3 1 2 The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 

So long as they have only their own fragile good- 
ness to rely upon, men ought to fear death. But 
our discourse now is of Christians who are in bond- 
age to this fear. Very many of them there are. Con- 
scientious, it may be, and upright believers; not 
ciphers in the Church, but in full sympathy with all 
that concerns the welfare of religion ; the thought of 
death, nevertheless, keeps a perpetual shadow upon 
their path. Life puts on a pensive cast with them. 
Their pleasures are only half enjoyed, and their trials 
are doubled, by the apprehension that in the end the 
last enemy may despoil them of their hope, and bear 
them away into a remediless captivity. 

I am not speaking, let me repeat, of mere formal 
professors who may be haunted with this fear : but of 
those whose humility and love and delight in God's 
worship and service attest their discipleship. When 
such disciples bow their necks to this yoke of bond- 
age, they do a great, though undesigned, wrong to 
their Master. For has He not conquered death ? 
Did He not die to destroy him that had the power 
of death? Is death anything more to the believer 
than the Saviour's own coming to conduct him 
home, as He Himself has represented it: "I will 
come again and receive you unto myself, that where 
I am, there ye may be also." Not only so: but 
there are constant examples of these doubting, heavy- 
laden souls dying in peace. Their fears are not 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 3 1 3 

realized. As the time of their departure approaches, 
their faith waxes stronger. The nearer death comes, 
the less formidable he looks. And when the en- 
counter actually occurs, they are sure to win a peace- 
ful and, it may be, an exulting victory, — enough, it 
might seem, to shame all similar doubters out of 
their distrust of the Redeemer's faithfulness. 

It w r as meet that Bunyan should sketch this scene 
for us. You will recall, as among his pilgrims, " Mr. 
Despondency," and his daughter, " Much-Afraid." 
How did the journey end with them? " Then Mr. 
Despondency said to his friends, ' Myself and my 
daughter, you know what we have been, and how 
troublesomely we have behaved ourselves in every 
company. My will and my daughter's is, that our 
desponds and slavish fears be by no man ever re- 
ceived, from the day of our departure forever: for I 
know that after my death they will offer themselves 
to others. For, to be plain with you, they are ghosts 
which we entertained when we first began to be pil- 
grims, and could never shake them off after; and 
they will walk about and seek entertainment of the 
pilgrims: but for our sakes, shut the doors upon 
them.' When the time was come for them to depart, 
they went up to the brink of the river. The last 
words of Mr. Despondency were, 'Farewell, night; 
welcome, day!' His daughter went through the river 
singing; but none could understand what she said." 

27 



314 The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 

And this is the way in which these desponding 
believers usually die. Why, then, should they go 
through life with an habitual distrust of their Lord? 
Why should they question either His ability or His 
willingness to bring them safely to His kingdom? 
Why give Him so much cause for the complaint, 
14 Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast 
thou not known me ?" 

(5) He may utter this reproach when His people 
are disconcerted or alarmed at the course of His provi- 
dence. 

I refer especially to events of a public nature, such 
as the prevalence of gross heresies ; defections from 
the Church ; disasters to the cause of missions; per- 
secutions ; wars among Christian nations, and the 
like. We need not shrink from the confession : 
events sometimes occur which confound all our wis- 
dom and fill us with anxious forebodings. On a su- 
perficial glance one might be ready to ask, whether 
God has not for the time surrendered the helm of the 
universe to other hands, so adverse is the current of 
things to what we have believed to be His plans, and 
so menacing to the best interests of mankind. Of 
course no Christian can really question whether He 
still reigns ; but faith is sorely tried by these inscru- 
table dispensations. We stand in mute wonder, afraid 
to picture to ourselves the frightful calamities which 
seem about to fall upon the world, and upon the 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 3 1 5 

Church. It is while His people are oppressed with 
fears like these the Saviour may be supposed to 
come to them with the admonition, " Have I been 
so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known 
me?" " So long time!" He may well say this. 
For when was it ever otherwise with His provi- 
dence ? It began in clouds and darkness, and they 
have not to this hour been dispersed. Scarcely a 
period can be named when His government of the 
world has not presented phenomena which have per- 
plexed His people, and turned their wisdom to fool- 
ishness. We are oppressed by the mysteries of our 
own day. Very profound they are; too intricate to 
be resolved by our philosophy. But the generations 
before us were subjected to the same discipline. 
There were enigmas in His providence which baffled 
their penetration. And they had their fears, as we 
have ours, concerning the probable consequences to 
the cause of human liberty, and the still higher in- 
terests of Christianity. We cannot easily repress 
such fears. But there are two considerations which 
should never be lost sight of; which, as Christians, 
it were a sin for us to lose sight of. One is, that 
whatever the aspect of His dispensations, Christ is 
on the throne. The government is upon His shoul- 
der. All power has been given Him in heaven and 
in earth ; and nothing can happen except as a part 
of His plan for carrying forward the affairs of our 



J 



i 6 The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 



world. He has not undertaken to do this in a way 
which we might suggest or commend. On the con- 
trary, He has governed the world from the outset in 
a manner altogether alien from any scheme we could 
have devised. This admitted fact should abate our 
astonishment at the methods of His providence now. 
They may not be what we would have desired. They 
may fill our bosoms with sorrowful anticipations. 
But they must be infinitely wise and just, because 
He orders or permits them. For the present they 
may be charged with evil ; and the chief agents in 
them may incur a flagrant criminality. But they 
must coalesce with His immutable purposes, and will 
ultimately be overruled to His glory. 

And this connects itself with the second consider- 
ation just adverted to, viz., that Jesus Christ loves the 
Church with a boundless love, and will never aban- 
don it to its foes. Of His purposes concerning par- 
ticular nations, the Jews only excepted, He has told 
us nothing, and therefore we know nothing. For 
aught we can tell, Africa may yet become, for the 
second time, the chief seat of civilization; or mis- 
sionaries of the cross may go from Canton and Ava 
to preach the Gospel in Spain and Italy. We are 
equally ignorant of the future of our own country. 
Not so, however, with the Church. This is Christ's 
purchased heritage, the Bride, the Lamb's Wife. It 
is graven upon the palms of His hands, and can no 



The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 3 1 7 

more perish than He can. It is His chosen habita- 
tion : " This is my rest forever ; here will I dwell." 
It may suffer from the wars and tumults of earth. It 
often has suffered. It has sometimes been brought 
very low. But it will survive. It is immortal, like its 
Lord. And these very commotions which excite our 
solicitude for its welfare, will in the end contribute 
to its purity and triumph. For He Himself has said, 
11 No weapon that is formed against thee shall pros- 
per ; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in 
judgment thou shalt condemn." (Isa. liv. 17.) 

On these two grounds we may dismiss our anx- 
iety — we may at least try to moderate it — concern- 
ing the mysteries of Providence. The Church and 
the world are in the hands of the Redeemer. And 
to indulge the suspicion that He has resigned the 
sceptre or become remiss in His rule, because His 
ways are not as our ways, is to give Him but too 
much occasion to say to us: " Have I been so long 
time with you, and yet hast thou not known me ?" 

I pause here with the single remark, that we cer- 
tainly ought to guard against the error of Philip. 
Jesus Christ has given its no reason to distrust Him, 
either in His being or in His attributes. We have 
proved His grace and His power, His patience and 
His pity, His love and His sympathy. Let us not 
wrong Him by questioning for an instant His uni- 

27* 



3 1 8 The Saviour, a Stranger to His Friends. 

versal supremacy, His faithfulness to His Church, or 
His ability and readiness to save all who will come 
to Him. Let us leave ourselves and our children, 
our Church and our country, in His hands ; assured 
that there and there alone true peace and safety are 
to be found ; and feeling that thus, and only thus, we 
can elude the reproof from those gentle lips, " Have 
I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not 
known me?" 



CHRIST GLORIFIED IN HIS PEOPLE. 



John xvii. 10. 



11 / am gloiified in them!' 

In the ordinary Scripture sense of the term, to be 
11 glorified" is to have one's character, works, or ways 
so set forth as to elicit adoration or praise. The 
expression frequently occurs in the memorable prayer 
from which the text is taken. The Saviour, address- 
ing the Father, says, " I have glorified Thee on the 
earth : I have finished the work which Thou gavest 
me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou me." 
This seems natural, that the Son should glorify the 
Father, and the Father the Son. Recognizing, as 
we do, their co-equal rank, the sentiment awakens in 
our breasts no emotion of surprise; it is just what 
we should expect. 

But the case before us is very different. "I am 
glorified in them." The " I" is the Only-begotten of 
the Father, and the Brightness of His glory: the 
Creator of the heavens and the earth : the King of 

3*9 



320 Christ Glorified in His People. 

kings and Lord of lords : before whom devils trem- 
ble, and in whose presence seraphs veil their faces. 
That so exalted a Being may be glorified by the 
angels, principalities, and powers of the celestial 
world, might seem to us a possible thing. But this 
is very far from being what He says. " I am glo- 
rified in tkem" — " in those whom Thou hast given 
me," — " the men which Thou gavest me out of the 
world." " Men," like ourselves : sinners of Adam's 
race : by nature depraved and vile : apostates and 
rebels : children of wrath : His ungrateful subjects, 
His enemies, His crucifiers. These are they who 
" glorify" the " Lord of glory." The two extremes 
meet. The Highest of all is magnified by the lowest 
of all. Mere worms of the dust invest with still 
nobler splendors Him whose throne fills all heaven 
with its effulgence. Are you ready to ask, u How 
can these things be ?" Peradventure He may have 
given us a key to the mystery. 

We come at once to the core of this subject when 
we inquire, whether more is to be learned concerning 
the Lord Jesus Christ from the history of the angels 
or from the history of man. Our instincts would 
point heavenward. The natural feeling would be: to 
know what Christ is, we must " ascend up into heaven" 
and survey His eternal dwelling-place. We must 
view all its arrangements and explore its appliances 
of happiness. Above all, we must confer with those 



Christ Glorified in His People. 321 

bright spirits who have always dwelt in His presence. 
They can tell us what He is. Certainly they could 
tell us many things about the Son of God which 
we could not learn elsewhere. But it is earth, not 
heaven, which has witnessed the complete revelation 
of His perfections. The angels have learned more 
respecting Him by coming to us, than we could have 
learned by going to them. The source and centre, 
as He is, of the light which illumines the universe, 
that light shines with its brightest radiance upon the 
other worlds, not as it reaches them with its direct 
rays, but with its rays as reflected from our obscure 
planet. 

It is the highest glory of a sinful creature that he 
should be so changed as to bear the image of God. 
Is it an irreverent suggestion, that -the Mediatorial 
glory of the Redeemer can be seen in its fulness 
only as His image is thrown back from the perfected 
humanity of a ransomed sinner? The proto-martyr 
Abel was probably the first sinner that ever entered 
heaven. Was there any creature there, from Ga- 
briel to the lowliest seraph, whose presence revealed 
so much of Christ's nature ? any one around whom 
they would gather with so absorbing an interest ? any 
one who could tell them so much that was new and 
strange to them ? May we not presume that Christ 
was " glorified" on the entrance of the martyr into 
heaven, as He had scarcely ever been before? that 



322 CJirist Glorified in His People. 

cherubim and seraphim saw farther down into the 
unfathomable depths of His nature that day, than 
they had ever done, or ever dreamed of doing ? 
And was not that the first leaf of a volume, a mighty 
volume, of which they have been turning the leaves 
to this day, every leaf reflecting His glory? 

To refer to man's moral deformity, is only to exalt 
our theme. It is because man is what he is, that 
he becomes capable of so glorifying the Redeemer. 
Had his character been less depraved, and his ruin 
less absolute, less honor would have accrued to his 
Deliverer. Nothing so much exalts the fame of a 
philanthropist as to have succeeded in rescuing men 
and women from utter degradation, and transforming 
them into reputable members of society. The depth 
of their wretchedness is the measure of his renown. 
In our condition as a race there are several elements 
combined, to neutralize any one of which must needs 
demand a superhuman arm. The problem was, to 
subdue them all not only, but to replace them with 
other elements as alien from them as life from death. 
It was not only to liberate the helpless, guilty captive, 
but to bring him into the fellowship of the blessed, 
and crown him with imperishable beauty and glory. 
See what obstacles barred the way. A prisoner, — 
and Satan, as the god of this world, held the key. 
No one could draw the bolt of that door, who was 
not stronger than the mightiest angel that rebelled. 



Christ Glorified in His People. 323 

And if opened, a greater obstacle remained : the pris- 
oner loved his thraldom too well to come forth. He 
would hug his chains and spurn the offer of deliver- 
ance. What could be done for a prisoner who pre- 
ferred servitude to freedom, who regarded his jailer 
as his friend, and his real friend as his enemy? Even 
this was not all. Another keeper guarded the door, 
and a very different one : inexorable Justice, clad in 
robes of light, and bearing the " flaming sword" with 
which the cherubim " kept the way of the tree of life/' 
How to liberate a prisoner thus guarded, must have 
been a problem too hard for any created intelligence 
to solve. Not only so; but no such intelligence 
could have imagined that it admitted of a solution 
even by the infinitely wise Father of all. What im- 
pression, then, must have been produced upon the 
universe when they saw the doors thrown wide open 
and the prisoner released, — Justice consenting, Satan 
vanquished, and the poor, blind, perverse slave ex- 
ulting in his new-born freedom! The "prisoner" 
did I say ? Nay, not one prisoner, but thousands, — 
millions, — a throng which no man can number, of all 
lands and all ages. Nations commemorate the great 
leaders who have delivered them from oppression, 
and the statesmen who have enfranchised a subject- 
race. Such benefactors are M glorified" in the people 
they have ransomed. But what deliverance may be 
named in comparison with that proclaimed in the 



324 Christ Glorified in His People. 

Gospel, the impediments so vast, the enfranchise- 
ment so complete, the cost so immeasurable ? Yes, 
the cost; this is an essential part of the " glory" that 
accrues to our Deliverer. When other races see our 
race marching forth in long succession from their 
hated bondage, they do not overlook the price paid 
for their rescue. There is nothing in the spectacle 
which so moves their wonder, or so inspires their 
psalms of praise, as that the Son of God should sac- 
rifice His own life to save theirs. In every one of 
these redeemed sinners they behold a trophy of His 
love, His wisdom, His power. And as the revolving 
ages swell the mighty concourse, all heaven contin- 
ues to "glorify" Him who broke the chains from 
such a race and set them free. 

But more than this is included in the text. When 
the Saviour says, " I am glorified in them," He must 
refer as well to their moral as their legal deliverance. 
How a sinner can be pardoned : this was one diffi- 
culty. We have been speaking of it. How a sin- 
ner can be cleansed from sin: this was another. To 
estimate it, consider the depth, the malignity, the 
universality, of human depravity. You need not go 
to the Bible. Take history, ancient and modern, gen- 
eral and particular. Find the chapter which does 
not prove or illustrate the fact of man's moral ruin. 
Survey the neighborhood in which you dwell. Re- 
view your own life. Everywhere you meet the en- 



Christ Glorified in His People. 



o^ 



signs of our apostasy. And if you would compre- 
hend the Saviour's work in overcoming it, consider 
how successfully it has withstood all other agencies. 
The world has not lacked philanthropists and re- 
formers. But what have they accomplished ? The 
sages of Greece and Rome were enriched with gifts 
which have ever commanded the admiration of man- 
kind. Could their philosophies cope with human de- 
pravity? From their day to our own, and eminently 
in our own, sagacious and benevolent men (ignorant 
of Christianity) have essayed the same task, and with 
the same result. Not a single instance can be ad- 
duced of a community or nation permanently rescued 
by these teachers from the control of vicious prin- 
ciples, and imbued with the higher type of virtues; 
not one, certainly, in which a people have been 
brought back into their true relations God-ward. A 
kindred inefficiency has attached to the most elab- 
orate systems of secular education. Cabinets and 
legislatures, ^armed with all the power of the State, 
have essayed the same task, and to no better pur- 
pose. Much they have achieved in the way of intel- 
ligence, — restraint, — amelioration. But renovation, 
never ! The world has seen but one society in 
which the depravity of the heart has been thor- 
oughly mastered, and its lawless appetites and pas- 
sions replaced with holy affections. The Christian 
society, it is true, exhibits this result only in an im- 

28 



326 Christ Glorified in His People. 



perfect degree. But with all real believers the foun- 
dation is laid for an entire and irreversible trans- 
formation. The first fruits are already apparent. 
They differ in kind from anything that ever grew in 
that soil before under whatever culture. In place of 
pride, there is humility: in place of callousness, con- 
trition : in place of selfishness, benevolence : in place 
of enmity to God, there is supreme love to God : in 
place of self-righteousness, a devout and grateful 
trusting to the blood and righteousness of Christ as 
a sinner's only hope. These are not stemless flowers, 
but vital germs, implanted by God's own hand, 
guarded by His arm, nourished by His love, and 
destined to bear their full fruitage in His paradise 
above. To see such trees growing in profusion in a 
soil from which the accumulated science and skill of 
centuries had never been able to educe a solitary 
living plant, must reflect high honor upon the Great 
Husbandman. Or, to lay aside the figure, to see 
this deformed and revolting race putting on raiment 
of celestial purity, and giving back, however feebly, 
the lineaments of God's own image, — what sight 
more wonderful can fix the gaze of the nobler races 
above us ? And as they are gathered home, — a 
glorious company, — with that Divine likeness fin- 
ished in its every line and feature, with what a ful- 
ness of meaning may their Redeemer say, "/ am 
glorified in them" ! 



Christ Glorified in His People. 327 

But there is yet more of precious truth hidden in 
this remarkable expression. On another occasion 
He said, " Herein is my Father glorified, X\\dX ye bear 
much fruit!' This must comprehend no less His 
own glory. How amazing the condescension on 
His part, how exalted the distinction conferred upon 
sinners of Adam's race, that He should thus link 
His glory, not simply with their ultimate triumph 
over death and hell, but with the humble offices 
they pay Him from day to day ! "I am glorified in 
them." They are bearing fruit now which glorifies 
Him. How is this? The second chapter of Acts 
describes how the process began with His disciples; 
and it is going on to this day. When Peter, the 
very apostle who had so cruelly denied Him the 
night of His arrest, stood up in the presence of that 
astonished crowd, and preached Jesus Christ and 
Him crucified with such power that three thousand 
unbelievers cried out as with one voice, " Men and 
brethren, what shall we do ?" was not Christ " glori- 
fied" alike in His servants and in their converts? 
And when this multitude of renewed sinners put off 
their Jewish prejudices, and the innate pride and 
selfishness of the human heart, and, yielding to the 
gentle but irresistible sway of Christian love, came 
together, holding all things common, parting to all 
as every man had need, praising God and having 
favor with all the people, — was not this spectacle, so 



328 Christ Glorified in His People. 



new to the world's experience, so inexplicable to the 
world's philosophy, one which magnified the name 
of Jesus? And was not His saying verified daily in 
the history of this community, " I am glorified in 
them"? 

The most obvious contemporaneous examples 
which offer themselves to our notice, are those sup- 
plied by the Foreign Missions of the day. In vari- 
ous countries may be found flourishing churches 
composed of converts from paganism. These con- 
verts are of course still beset with their natural in- 
firmities, very many of them only " babes in Christ." 
Nevertheless, they are " new creatures." They are 
no longer idolaters ; no longer the wretched slaves 
of all manner of vices. They have come out from 
their old associations. They are actuated by new 
motives. They are seen and known of all men to 
be as unlike their former selves as if they were dif- 
ferent persons. They are better, wiser, happier, and 
more useful men and women than had ever been 
seen or thought of among heathen nations. With 
one accord they ascribe the transformation which 
has passed over them to the Gospel of Christ. 
Christ's love to them has so enkindled their love to 
Him, that this has now become the dominant pas- 
sion of their souls. It is gradually permeating their 
whole characters and shaping their lives. And it is 
their constant prayer and endeavor that their deluded 



Christ Glorified in His People. 329 

countrymen may be led to Christ and share in the 
ineffable blessings they have received. Do we trifle 
when we say that the Saviour is glorified in them? 
that every tribe rescued from barbarism, every church 
that lifts its spire heavenward on pagan soil, every 
individual convert even, reflects the glory of the Son 
of God? 

But we need not go abroad. There is a well-de- 
fined line which divides the populations of Christian 
lands into two classes. We do not claim that this 
line is precisely coincident with the boundaries of 
the Church: for there is more or less of wood, hay, 
and stubble mixed with the gold, silver, and precious 
stones of the Sanctuary. But in general terms we 
may affirm of the Christian society, that it is the 
nursery of virtues which bloom nowhere else, and 
which are vital to the well-being of mankind. In 
our search for purity, for humility, for truth and in- 
tegrity, for benevolence, for sympathy with all phi- 
lanthropic plans and efforts, we turn intuitively to 
those who bear the name of Christ. It is to them 
nations are indebted for the elements which conserve, 
harmonize, and elevate them. They are the founders 
and patrons of the noble charities which are the true 
glory of any people, — even of those peoples who are 
most distinguished in arts and arms. And this vast 
tide of goodness which flows in countless channels 
through every Christian land, springs from a single 

28* 



330 Christ Glorified in His People. 

source, the cross of Christ. Whereinsoever the Chris- 
tian population of a country differ from those who 
are alien from Christianity, the contrast is to be re- 
ferred entirely to the interposition of the Redeemer. 
By no inherited virtue, by no force of self-will, by no 
mere human training, but solely through the grace 
and mercy of Christ, have they attained the rare 
eminence which marks their lot. To Him do they 
ascribe the merit. All w r ho witness the results 
know and feel that His hand has wrought them. 
And in this view, again, His saying has its confirma- 
tion, " I am glorified in them." 

Christianity, however, is not content to deal with 
masses and aggregates. Even as in the case of the 
first martyr already adverted to > Christ will have His 
revenue of praise from every ransomed sinner. Alike 
from the prince and the peasant, from the child and 
the sage of gray hairs, from the servant to whom He 
has given five talents, and the servants to whom He 
has given one, He expects not only, but actually 
receives, His measure of glory. If He deems the 
giving of a cup of water to one of His disciples 
worthy of a reward, there can be no trivial act per- 
formed in the spirit of a loving disciple, which He 
may not make subservient to His own glory. Let 
this be for the encouragement of those who are 
endowed with but slender gifts; of those who are 
shut up to an obscure situation ; of those whose life 



Christ Glorified in His People. 331 

is an incessant struggle for their daily bread. The 
one thing needful is not superior talents, nor station, 
nor the opportunity of achieving great objects, but 
love to Christ and fidelity to His service. Make sure 
of this, and He will insure the rest. Exemplify this, 
and He will so link His name with your unobtrusive 
virtues and your tranquil life, that He will say of you, 
no less than of those to whom He assigns the high 
places of His Church, "I am glorified in them." 

And if by action, still more by passion. If the 
labors of His disciples glorify Him, how much more 
their sufferings ! To labor in such a cause and with 
such surroundings, is counter to nature. It implies 
a new and very different nature, one which God 
alone can confer. But to suffer, — patiently — submis- 
sively — cheerfully, — this bespeaks yet more emphati- 
cally the presence and power of His grace. When 
the apostles had been rebuked by the Sanhedrim, 
they went forth " rejoicing that they were counted 
worthy to suffer shame for His name." St. Paul 
gloried in his persecutions and afflictions, not be- 
cause he loved pain and trouble, but that the power 
of Christ might rest upon him. One cannot con- 
template a single example of patient suffering in 
the history of the apostolic Church, or among "the 
noble army of martyrs," without feeling how liter- 
ally the Saviour's words were verified, " I am glorified 
in them." 



Christ Glorified in His People. 



Nor this alone. It is the allotment of the few to 
be apostles or martyrs. But it is the common lot to 
suffer, and the common privilege of believers to 
" glorify God in the fires." On every side there 
are disciples struggling with poverty, — bowed down 
under reverses — prostrated with disease — smitten 
with sore bereavements, — whose trials only bring 
into brighter relief the lineaments of their Master's 
image. We could not, if we would, dissociate the 
heavenly temper with which they bear these suffer- 
ings, from its Divine Source. To every beholder 
it speaks of His love and faithfulness. There needs 
no voice from heaven to say, " I am glorified in 
them." For everything pertaining to a spectacle of 
this sort reflects His glory. 

And if this be so with other scenes of suffering, 
how much more with the last scene! The Gospel 
of Christ apart, there is that in the fearful inequality 
of the contestants which may well appall the stoutest 
heart; which, indeed, leaves no room even for hope. 
What can man do in a conflict with death ? The 
strongest and the weakest — the warrior and the 
babe — sink to a common level here. From the 
beginning of the world it has had but one issue, 
— and can have no other. Out of Christ, the sin- 
ner — any sinner — is in the hands of death, like tow 
in the fire. But to the sinner in Christ, the issue 
is reversed. It is no longer Death that is invin- 



Christ Glorified in His People. 333 

cible, but the dying believer. Out of Christ, the 
soul is always vanquished. In Christ, it always 
triumphs. 

It is perhaps the occasion which, beyond any 
other, brings home to our sensibilities the sentiment, 
" I am glorified in them." We have all seen it — the 
death-bed of the believer. We have watched the 
slow decay and the waning convulsions of nature. 
We have stood with trembling as the lamp of life 
flickered in the socket. And we have seen how the 
loved and cherished invalid was the only calm and 
peaceful and tearless one of the group; how sweetly 
resigned to the Father's will ; how ready to let go 
the tenderest ties of earth ; how serene in the approach 
of the destroyer; how willing to depart and be with 
Christ ; how manifestly breathing the air already 
of the very suburbs of heaven. These are familiar 
experiences, and the one thought they suggest, is the 
thought that fills the whole mind and soul of the de- 
parting saint, the thought of Christ. His grace — 
His love — His faithfulness — His sympathy : no one 
thinks of aught else. The victory we are witnessing 
over death is His victory. And all the more mar- 
vellous does it appear that it should be achieved by 
a poor, helpless sinner, who, left to himself, could 
not have sustained the unequal strife for a single 
moment. With what a fulness of meaning may the 
Saviour say, in view of the millions who overcome 



334 Christ Glorified in His People. 

the last Enemy by the blood of the Lamb, " I am 
glorified in them" ! 

We close as we began, with a glance at the future 
of the ransomed. If Christ be glorified in His people 
here, how much more wlien they shall all be gath- 
ered into His presence at the last day, and throughout 
eternity ! 

It is not given us even to conceive of that scene 
when the Son of man shall come to present His 
Church to Himself, a glorious Church. Let it suf- 
fice that of that illimitable throng which no man can 
number, every one will have been washed in His 
blood and renewed in His image. From every 
sphere angelic hosts hasten to assist at the august 
nuptials of their Lord with His affianced Bride, the 
Church. Their glory pales before that which en- 
folds her, — the strange, surpassing glory of a holiness 
no less immaculate, and a righteousness more noble 
than their own. Whatever confirmation the senti- 
ment may have received before, this spectacle must 
ravish all heaven with the feeling, " I am glorified in 
them." Contemplated in its relations to Him, it 
savors of " an exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory," too vast and too sublime to be compassed 
by any except the Infinite Intelligence. Yes, " an 
eternal weight of glory;" for it will continue through- 
out eternity to reflect the glories of our Immanuel. 

Not to pursue this theme, what honor has the 



Christ Glorified in His People. 335 

Redeemer put upon our race, in thus employing our 
poor services and sufferings to exalt His own glory ! 
What dignity does this thought impart to the Chris- 
tian character ! With what sacredness does it invest 
the Christian life ! How infinite His condescension ! 
how deep and tender His love to our poor race ! 
that He should put it in the power of miserable sin- 
ners like ourselves to augment, by however slight a 
degree, the effulgence of His " many crowns," and 
make Him appear yet more glorious before an 
adoring universe. Is not this a motive to Christian 
fidelity to which every heart must respond ? Can we 
requite the boundless mercy of our great Benefactor 
with less than the willing, undivided homage of our 
hearts and lives? And shall we not accept with 
loving, joyful, gratitude, the privilege of once more 
commemorating the atoning death of Him who hath 
so loved us ? 



THE ANNUNCIATION. 



Luke i. 28. 



"Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with 
thee : blessed art thou among women." 

We have been accustomed to confer together at 
this season of the year, about the advent of our Lord. 

I propose now to speak to you of His Mother, the 
blessed Virgin. Whatever pertains to her character 
and life will be sure of ready audience. By how 
much we revolt at the Divine homage which is paid 
her by millions of deluded worshippers, by so much 
are we disposed to render her that affectionate and 
grateful veneration which is due to her from all man- 
kind. There can be no one here who does not in- 
stinctively take up and repeat the angelic benediction, 

II Blessed art thou among women!" It is one of our 
regrets, as we turn over the pages of the New Testa- 
ment, that they supply us with such scant information 
concerning her. A reason for this may, perhaps, be 
suggested when we consider the tendency of the 

33'> 



The Annunciation* 337 

world, now so fully developed, to deify her. Super- 
stition, however, has, with characteristic perverse- 
ness, availed itself of the silence of Scripture, to 
frame a tolerably complete biography of Mary, purely 
its own invention. Not to go far into details, ac- 
cording to the apocryphal Gospels, her parents were 
named Joachim and Anna, and were both of the 
race of David. At nine months of age she walked 
nine steps. When three years old, her parents hav- 
ing brought her to the temple, " the high-priest 
placed her upon the third step of the altar, and she 
danced, and all the house of Israel loved her." She 
remained at the temple until she was fourteen years 
old, ministered to by the angels. In due time she 
was betrothed to Joseph. The birth of her infant 
was signalized by a sort of solemn pause in both ani- 
mate and inanimate nature. As Joseph went out of 
the cave at Bethlehem into which he had led her, 
14 he looked up and saw the clouds astonished and all 
creatures amazed. The fowls stopped in their flight; 
the working people sat at their food, but did not eat; 
the sheep stood still ; the shepherds' lifted hands be- 
came fixed ; the kids were touching the water with 
their mouths, but did not drink/' " For her unbelief 
as to the birth of the child, Salome's hand withered ; 
but, being instructed by an angel, she touched the 
infant and was cured." 

Such is a specimen of the fables which make up 
29 



00 c 



The Annunciation. 



the spurious " Gospel of the Birth of Mary'' and the 
" rrotevangelion." Those which precede her intro- 
duction to us in the New Testament, are greatly ex- 
ceeded in number and extravagance by those which 
pertain to her later history. It is refreshing to turn 
from these fictitious legends to the simple narrative 
of the Evangelists. What we really know of her 
may be summed up in a few words. But I do not 
purpose at present to go beyond the Annunciation. 

Of her name, — the sweetest of all female names, — 
it is sufficient to say that it is the same as Miriam ; 
and that in the original Greek, when applied to the 
Virgin, it is always written Mariam (Maptdfi); while the 
form Maria [Majpia) is observed in referring to the 
other Marys. It must be deemed remarkable that 
we know nothing of her parents, — not even the name 
of her mother, and, not with certainty, her father's 
name. This latter point depends upon the view 
which is taken of the two Genealogies of Matthew 
and Luke. Biblical scholars have always been di- 
vided on the questions growing out of these tables. 
Very eminent authorities may be cited in support of 
the idea that both the tables pertain exclusively to 
Joseph. On this view we have, in Matthew, Jo- 
seph's genealogy as legal successor to the throne of 
David, — the names of the successive heirs of the 
kingdom, ending with Christ, as Joseph's reputed 
Son. While the table in Luke is Joseph's private 



The Annunciation. 339 

genealogy, exhibiting his real birth as David's Son, 
and thus showing why He was heir to Solomon's 
crown. This theory does not preclude the idea of 
Mary's descent from David, although the Scriptures 
do not mention the fact. On the other hand, schol- 
ars of equal rank regard Matthew's genealogy as 
that of Joseph, and Luke's as that of Mary. She 
was the daughter of Heli. But, as these tables were 
usually confined to males, Joseph is mentioned as 
the " son of Heli," being really his son-in-law. There 
is strong ground for accepting this view of St. Luke's 
table. But, apart from his record, we have ample 
warrant for believing that Mary was of the royal line 
of David. " The Son of David" was a familiar ap- 
pellation of her son. And if she had not been of 
that stock her adversaries might easily have shown 
it by pointing out her parentage. But all doubt is 
precluded by the fact that His descent from David 
was distinctly affirmed by the angel : " The Lord 
God shall give unto Him the throne of His father 
David." This proves that Mary must have been of 
M the seed royal." 

Our narrative commences thus : " And in the sixth 
month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a 
city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused 
to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of 
David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the 
angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art 



340 The Annunciation. 



highly favored, the Lord is with thee: Blessed art 
thou among women." Very apt is the comment of 
a modern writer: "The high rank of the ambassa- 
dor evinced the grandeur and importance of the mis- 
sion with which he was charged. The angels knew it : 
they knew that it affected deeply the most essential 
interests of the race of man, not only in time but in 
eternity. But to man himself, seeing only its outer 
aspect, the immediate result would have seemed in- 
adequate and disappointing. He went not to any of 
the great nations of the earth. He visited not any 
of her mighty cities, — not Rome, not Athens, not 
Alexandria, not Antioch, nor even Jerusalem. His 
mission was to a small and dependent country, — to 
the most despised province of that country, — to the 
most ill- reputed town of that province. Aye, but 
surely some great king had his sojourn there, or 
some great prophet, or some holy priest, or some 
sage renowed for wisdom ? Not so. His mission 
was to one of the humblest abodes of that humble 
place ; and neither to prince, to prophet, to priest, 
nor to philosopher; but to a poor maiden of Naza- 
reth, named Mary, betrothed to a carpenter named 
Joseph."* 

Rarely has our globe been the theatre of an inter- 
view so remarkable as that which is described in 

* Kitto. 



The Annunciation. 341 

this passage. Here is a Jewish maiden at her own 
secluded home. Of her appearance we can affirm 
nothing, since the Scriptures are silent on the point. 
But we all have an intuitive conviction that she was 
endowed with every personal grace and beauty. We 
need no revelation to assure us that she carried 
about with her the charms of an inexpressible loveli- 
ness. Still less are we in doubt as to her character. 
The noble blood which linked her with the house of 
David, was fitly blended with a piety which already 
united her with David's greater Son. She was of 
that chosen few who, like the venerable Simeon and 
Anna, were " waiting for the Consolation of Israel." 
Familiar with the prophecies, she would often ponder 
those predictions which heralded the coming Deliv- 
erer as " a rod out of the stem of Jesse," and as the 
son of a " Virgin" mother. But there is no evidence 
that her nation expected a Divine Messiah. And 
while Mary knew that He was to be of the same 
regal line with herself, it would be going very far to 
presume that she, or any of her countrymen, had an 
accurate idea of what was intended by His being 
born of a virgin. Still, as the period of His advent 
was known to be near, her sympathies and studies 
and prayers would cluster especially around these 
prophecies. Nor do we draw unduly upon the im- 
agination if we suppose that she may have been, at 
this very moment, engaged in devout meditation 

29* 



34 2 The Annunciation. 

upon this subject. Withdrawn from all human eyes, 
alone in the little room of her father's humble mansion, 
which had become her sanctuary, as she waits upon 
God, there suddenly stands before her a human 
form. " Human," I say, for thus the angels usually 
appeared in their visits to individuals. In any coun- 
try such an occurrence would be sufficiently embar- 
rassing; but peculiarly so in the East, where the 
social intercourse of the sexes is fettered with many 
restrictions. While Gabriel's aspect was that of a 
man, there was doubtless something about him 
which either conveyed to her mind an intimation of 
his superior rank, or at least served to tranquillize 
her as he spoke. But his strange words deeply 
agitated her. " Hail, thou that art highly favored ; 
the Lord is with thee : Blessed art thou among 
women !" 

This greeting forms the first part of the Ave 
Maria of the Romish Church : " Hail Mary, full of 
grace, the Lord is with thee." The second part is 
taken from the address of Elizabeth to Mary (v. 42): 
" Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the 
fruit of thy womb, Jesus." In the beginning of the 
sixteenth century (1 508) that Church added the re- 
maining sentence, which is an idolatrous invocation 
of the Virgin: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray 
for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. 
Amen." 



The Annttnctation. 343 

In the first clause, the expression "full of grace" 
has served as a foundation for their theory that "she 
had all the seven gifts of the Spirit, and all the theo- 
logical and moral virtues, and such a fulness of the 
graces of the Holy Ghost, as none ever had the like." 
But the theory rests upon a mis-translation, and is 
without warrant. The term rendered " full of grace" 
is, in our version, " highly-favored," which is no 
doubt its meaning also in Eph. i. 6, the only other 
place in the New Testament where it is found : " hath 
made us accepted in the beloved," — i.e., " hath caused 
us to be highly favored, to receive Divine favor or 
grace in our Lord Jesus Christ. ,, There are so very 
few words in the sacred narrative which can be tor- 
tured into the support of the sinful worship they pay 
the Virgin, that the attempt to wrest this term from 
its proper signification can excite no surprise. 

We read without marvel, that when Mary " saw 
him she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her 
mind what manner of salvation this should be." The 
address which followed — the like of which had never 
fallen, and will never fall, upon mortal ears — would 
not allay her amazement. "Fear not, Mary: for 
thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, thou 
shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, 
and shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, 
and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the 
Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His 



344 y/ le Annunciation. 

father David: and He shall reign over the house of 
David forever; and of His kingdom there shall be 
no end." Perplexed and astonished beyond measure, 
the maiden, as if rather musing than asking a ques- 
tion, exclaims, "How shall this be?" To which Ga- 
briel: ''The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and 
the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee : 
therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born 
of thee shall be called the Son of God." With inim- 
itable grace, modesty, and sweetness does she reply, 
" Behold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it unto me 
according to thy word." 

Looking at this transaction still in its personal 
bearings, we are none of us, perhaps, in the habit of 
dwelling upon the ordeal to which Mary was sub- 
jected. The sanctity of the conjugal relation among 
the Hebrews was one of the points which distin- 
guished them from all other nations. The provisions 
of their Divine code respecting betrothed females 
were extremely rigorous : the penalty they incurred 
by transgression was that of being "stoned to death." 
What, then, with Mary's gentleness and refinement, 
and her reputation for eminent piety on the one 
hand, and, on the other, the shock likely to be in- 
flicted upon Joseph (and which actually followed), 
with the prospect of her public shame and an 
ignominious death, one may frame some concep- 
tion of the tumult of feeling which would agitate 



The Annunciation. 345 

her breast on listening to the mysterious commu- 
nication of the angel. A most convincing illus- 
tration it is of the strength of her faith that the con- 
flict with her fears was so brief. Should we not 
rather admire herein the fulness and power of that 
grace which went along with the angelic message; 
which lifted her above the suggestions of flesh and 
blood, even up to the height of that sublime utter- 
ance, " Behold the handmaid of the Lord ; be it unto 
me according to thy word !" 

Joseph, as we find, had his conflict too. The de- 
cision to which he came, to put Mary away "privily," 
is tacitly commended by the Evangelist. But the 
angel comes to him in turn and averts even this 
trial, by revealing to him the wondrous dealings of 
God with her. 

And this suggests the inquiry why it was pre- 
determined that the Messiah should be born of a 
betrotlicd virgin. We do not know. But it would 
seem that this arrangement may have been designed 
to shield her own name from reproach, and to secure 
for herself and her child a competent protector (wit- 
ness their early flight to Egypt); while it also pro- 
vided for her Son " a foster-father, who, as heir to 
the throne of David, would give to his adopted son 
the legal rights to the same dignity." It is, indeed, 
apparent that her espousal to Joseph relieved the 
mysterious transaction of many embarrassing cir- 



346 The Annunciation. 



cumstances which must have attended the Saviour's 
nativity if born of an unaffianced mother. 

The angel had apprised her that her Son was to 
bear such titles as " Jesus," and "The Son of the 
Highest," and that He was to sit on the throne of 
David. She could not fail to gather from these par- 
ticulars that He was destined to very exalted honors, 
and would wield a sceptre of more than imperial 
power. But it is evident that she did not compre- 
hend the full import of these expressions. Nor was it 
designed that she should. " It is worthy of remark 
that the proper Divinity of her Son was not revealed 
to Mary : otherwise, neither she nor Joseph could 
have been in a position to bring up the child : for 
the submission which was a necessary condition of 
His humanity would have been submission only in 
appearance. But this promise, while it by no means 
abolished the parental relationship, would yet direct 
the reverential attention of the parents toward the 
child. From the very beginning of our Lord's in- 
carnation we see that the knowledge of His Divinity 
was not to be communicated in an external and 
awe-inspiring manner; but to be gradually mani- 
fested by His humanity and His work of redemp- 
tion."* 

We may go a step further. Not only did Mary 

* Von Gerlach ap. Lange. 



The Annunciation. 347 

miss the full meaning of the angel's address at the 
time, but she lived with her Son for thirty years (so 
it would seem) without that plenary knowledge of 
His Divine nature and rank which belongs to the 
very elements of our faith. How far or in what 
ways His Deity may have disclosed itself during 
this long period we do not know. The last view we 
have of Him as a child of twelve years old, gives 
assurance that during the eighteen years for which He 
then vanishes from our sight there must have been 
very much in His daily life to excite the wonder of 
His family. These things His mother (of all per- 
sons) would keep and ponder them in her heart. 
But when at length the period came for His mani- 
festation to Israel, He appears to have been even to 
her as incomprehensible a being as ever. This is 
apparent from several incidents, among which we 
can only mention here her address to Him at the 
marriage festival in Cana, and her attempt to speak 
with Him when He was one day addressing a crowd 
of people. Had she knoivn, as she knew afterwards, 
and as we know, just who and what He was, these 
passages in her life had not occurred. Nor are they 
cited here in the way of censure. The latter inci- 
dent adverted to, is the only occasion on which 
she tried to interfere with His arrangements: and it 
was prompted by a mother's tenderness, which only 
endears her to our hearts. Still, it shows that even 



34^ The Annunciation. 

Mary had not yet soared to the full conception of 
the honor which God had put upon her. 

In this connection one would like to ask, did the 
Holy child Himself have from the beginning, this 
absolute knowledge of His own Divinity? Was the 
fact from which His mother's eyes were holden, re- 
vealed to His own consciousness from the first mo- 
ment of His life? No one but God can answer this 
question. But we may say, as bearing upon the 
point, that Jesus was " very man." He had a soul 
and body, like any other man. His human nature 
was complete in itself. It began with infancy. It 
was capable of growth. It did grow both physically 
and mentally. All the while, from the moment of 
conception, the Divine nature was united inseparably 
with it. Was His humanity conscious of being thus 
interpenetrated with the Divinity when He hung 
upon His mother's bosom, — when she gave Him His 
first lessons in talking and walking, — when she took 
Him by the hand and led Him forth to look upon 
the fields and the hills and the starry heavens ? 
Did He then knoiv that these were His ozvn handi- 
work? Or did this consciousness come to Him 
gradually? Was it (as has been surmised) first 
awakened by observing the fact that He was holy, 
while all other men were sinful? And did this 
germ ripen into maturity about the period when He 
met the learned doctors in the temple? Or did it 



The Annunciation. 349 

require those thirty years to bring it to its consum- 
mation ? No one expects these questions to be an- 
swered. They pertain to the " great mystery of 
godliness, God manifest in the flesh." It may, per- 
haps, be as much a mystery to us hereafter as it is 
now. There seems slight ground to believe that we 
shall ever understand the union of the Divine and 
human in the Person of our Lord. But one may be 
allowed to meditate — so it be done reverently — 
upon points which our revelation has passed by in 
silence. 

In reference to the miraculous conception, it may 
seem remarkable that so wonderful an event should 
not be dwelt upon in the New Testament. This 
circumstance has not escaped the animadversion 
of hostile critics. But in truth the silence of the 
parties chiefly interested is in keeping with the 
whole spirit of the transaction. Neither Mary nor 
Joseph, nor Jesus Himself, so far as we know, men- 
tioned the facts. Why should they? What was to 
be gained by it among that perverse generation 
but fresh reproaches and insults? Mary, especially, 
would have drawn upon herself a torrent of merci- 
less invective, which might have crushed her gentle 
nature. And the enemies of Christ would have 
found in it a further stimulus to their malevolent 
abuse of Him. Is it strange they should have 
locked up the secret in their own breasts ? So care- 

30 



350 The Annunciation. 



fully was it guarded, that they appear not to have 
confided it even to their own immediate relatives. 
Mary herself, on one occasion, spoke of Joseph as 
His father: "Thy father and I have sought Thee 
sorrowing." And His " brethren did not believe on 
Him." When St. Paul was taken up into heaven, 
he saw and heard what he was not allowed to utter 
on his return to earth. Whether a similar reticence 
was imposed upon Mary during the Saviour's life 
we are not informed. But delicacy and prudence 
would prompt to this course, irrespective of any pro- 
hibition. All arguments of this sort would be an- 
nulled by His resurrection. After that, she would be 
likely to speak of the facts to St. John and others. 
And when the Gospels were to be written, two of the 
Evangelists were inspired to put them on record for 
the faith and comfort of the Church in all coming 
time. 

The fact of the Incarnation is the most wonderful 
event (the crucifixion itself scarcely excepted) in the 
history of our world. It " passeth knowledge," as 
was just hinted, viewed as a union of the Divine and 
human natures, and not less in respect to the man- 
ner of its occurrence. That there was a moral ne- 
cessity for it we are entitled to believe from the fact 
itself. Its pre-eminent suitableness to the ends to 
be accomplished by it, must be apparent even to a 
superficial observer. 



The Annunciation. 351 

It was expedient that our Redeemer should be 
God, because the obstacles in the way of man's sal- 
vation could be removed only by an Almighty arm. 
Satan and his hosts were to be vanquished, and an 
atonement was to be made for sin which should be 
impressed with an infinite value. Further, it seemed 
congruous to the glorious excellency of the Su- 
preme Being, that the Redemption of our race 
should be achieved in some method adapted to un- 
veil His adorable perfections to the universe, as had 
never been done before. 

That the Redeemer should also be man, was re- 
quired by the fundamental principle of substitution, 
upon which the purpose of Divine mercy rested. 
The law could not be dishonored : not one jot or 
tittle must pass away till all had been fulfilled. Pre- 
cept and penalty must be satisfied. This could not 
be by any other nature than that which had sinned. 
An angel could not become the vicar and surety of 
man. Had Christ's mission been to the lost angels, 
He would have taken upon Himself the nature of 
angels. But interposing for our ransom, He takes 
upon Him the seed of Abraham. In this way alone 
could He have that experience of human life, with 
its cares and conflicts, its temptations and sorrows, 
which would fit Him to enter with a ready sympathy 
into the trials and wants of His people. 

The necessity for His twofold nature being pre- 



3D 2 



The Annunciation. 



Rlised, while the problem it presents must have baf- 
fled the wisdom of men and angels, we can but stand 
and adore the manner in which it was actually re- 
solved. The very first intimation of a Deliverer to 
the fallen pair in Eden, contained a significant refer- 
ence to the H seed of the ivoman /" which, centuries 
afterward, ripened into the explicit announcement, " A 
Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son." (Isa. vii. 14.) 
It was absolutely indispensable that the Redeemer 
of sinners should Himself be without sin. This is 
one of our intuitive convictions. We all understand 
why the sacred writers dwell upon the perfect sinless- 
ness of Jesus ; why they tell us that He was " holy, 
harmless, and undefiled;" that He a knew no sin;" 
that He was a Lamb " without blemish and without 
spot;" and that " in Him was no sin." The least 
taint of sin must have vitiated His entire work. 
There is only one method by which it would have 
seemed to us possible to bring about this result, the 
production of a sinless man, viz., that pursued in the 
original creation of man. God had made one holy 
man. He could make another. But the insuperable 
difficulty here would have been, that such a man, 
though bearing our nature, would not have been of 
our race; would have been allied to us by no ties of 
consanguinity or affection ; would have been no 
nearer to us than an angel clothed in a human form; 
and could not, therefore, have answered to any of 



The Annunciation. 353 



the conditions essential to the atoning work to be 
accomplished. 

On the other hand, no one descending from Adam 
" by ordinary generation," could escape the taint of 
original sin. The infection was in the blood. The 
stream cannot rise above its fountain. " That which 
is born of the flesh, is flesh." Had Jesus been the 
son of Joseph and Mary, He Himself would have 
needed a Redeemer. 

This problem which must so have confounded us, 
could not baffle Him with whom " all things are pos- 
sible." Behold in Christ "the wisdom of God." 
The Son of God — the Son of Mary. Divine — human. 
Finite — infinite. We accept the marvel, because 
God hath affirmed it; not because we can explain 
it. We cannot. What we know for a certainty is, 
that God has come down to us in the likeness of 
man. The stream of humanity flowing on in the 
same deep, turbid channels for ages, had become 
immedicably poisoned. Nothing could heal or even 
ameliorate it but the infusion of a Divine element. 
And this was the inscrutable transaction described 
in the Scripture before us, which has forever made 
the Virgin Mary " blessed among women." 

We might have asked a thousand questions con- 
cerning the Divine procedure in this matter; but 
there is a veil thrown over it which screens it from 
all human eyes. How " the word was made flesh," 



354 The Annunciation. 



we do not know ; but we know the fact. We know 
that Jesus was as truly the Son of Mary as Mary 
was the child of her mother. The miraculous in- 
fluence which overshadowed and pervaded her frame 
abated nothing from the strict humanity of her Son. 
The union of the Divine nature with the nature He 
derived from His mother, left the latter unimpaired 
in the fulness of its powers. There was no such 
transfusion of the one into the other, no such com- 
mixture of the two, as to disturb the identity of 
either. The Divine nature could not become human, 
for it is self-existent and immutable ; it cannot be to- 
day what it was not yesterday ; nor to-morrow what 
it is not to-day ; as it certainly cannot become sus- 
ceptible of suffering. Nor, for corresponding rea- 
sons, can the human be made Divine. But the 
human nature being formed by the Holy Ghost, and 
taken into a most intimate and indissoluble union 
with the Divine, was not only complete in respect 
to the full circle of its faculties and capacities, but 
exempt from the hereditary defilement of the race. 
44 That Holy Thing which shall be born of thee." 
We have seen that a Redeemer must be human 
and sinless, — and how wonderfully this was brought 
about. It was no less needful that He should be 
perfect. Indeed, it is self-evident that the humanity of 
such a being could not fail to be of the highest possi- 
ble type. Our subject does not call for an elucidation 



The Annunciation. 355 



of this point; for it is not so much the Son as the 
mother we are now contemplating. Otherwise, it 
were easy to show not only that His character com- 
bined all the excellences possible to human nature 
in their just balance, but that He represented no one 
class or nation or age. A Jew by descent, He was 
in character as much Gentile as Jew. There was 
about Him nothing provincial, nothing temporary. 
Had He appeared among any other people, they 
would have found the same grounds of sympathy 
between themselves and Him, which attracted to 
Him the devout, the humble, and the suffering of 
the Hebrews. Should He reassume His earthly min- 
istry to-day, and open it in China or Africa, the same 
classes would be drawn to Him. For He belongs to 
all climes, to all races, to all periods, — as much the 
only Max as Adam was when he stood alone, a 
perfect man in a perfect world. But we must not 
pursue this theme. 

A sinless man, was Jesus the offspring of a sinless 
mother ? How marvellous that such a question 
should be raised! It was not raised for centuries 
after her death. The subject is too large to be dis- 
cussed here. But the historical facts may be briefly 
stated. For the first five centuries of the Christian 
era, there is no hint to be found in the writings of 
the fathers, of the perfection or the worship of Mary. 
Several of them refer to incidents mentioned in the 



\$6 The Annunciation. 



Gospels as illustrating her unbelief, and even her 
44 ambition." The apocryphal legends, invented by 
heretics, were condemned by the Church of those 
ages. But these legends contained the fatal germ 
which the Church itself by and by transplanted into 
its bosom, and there it grew, until it has now waxed 
to be " a great tree." It is quite intelligible how 
the virtues which clustered around the person of the 
Virgin, might be carried up by enthusiastic writers 
and aspiring prelates, from the human into the Di- 
vine. In the sixth century it was first suggested 
within the Church that, while inheriting the stain of 
original depravity, it was possible God might have 
preserved her from positive transgression. In the 
thirteenth century this modest conjecture had grown 
into the averment that, although conceived in origi- 
nal sin, her nature was renewed and sanctified before 
birth. Soon after, the modicum of truth lingering 
in this statement was contested ; and then com- 
menced that controversy among the Romish Doc- 
tors concerning the absolute freedom of the Virgin 
from all sin, original and actual, which has in our 
day culminated in the famous Decree (Dec. 8, 1854) 
of the M Immaculate Conception/' It is now a part 
of the settled faith of the Romish Church, that Mary 
was as sinless as Iter Divine Son. And every mem- 
ber of that communion is required to believe this 
under penalty of anathema. 



The Annunciation. 357 

There is something frightfully impious in a trans- 
action like this : that a Church calling itself Christian, 
should not simply invent a dogma which is without 
Scripture warrant and against all Scripture author- 
ity, but attempt to bind it upon men's consciences 
as of God's teaching, and to make the reception of it 
essential to their salvation ! Let us be thankful to 
that benign Providence who has given us an open 
Bible and preserved us from these soul-destroying 
errors. 

We see enough of the Virgin in the New Testa- 
ment to know that if it were possible for sorrow and 
pain to force an entrance into heaven, the propaga- 
tion of the fable we have been considering, with the 
worship which is paid her, would fill her with unut- 
terable anguish. But, not to dwell upon this topic, 
let us close with a more grateful theme. 

While we can neither concede the sinlessness of 
Mary nor join in offering her Divine honors, we 
pay her a truer reverence, and cherish her memory 
with a purer affection, than those who would exalt 
her to a seat on the very throne of the universe, be- 
side God and the Lamb. She stands before us the 
impersonation of all that is true and refined and hal- 
lowed in female excellence. In all the records of 
female biography, ancient and modern, Biblical and 
profane, we know of nothing so exquisite, no inci- 
dent in which unsullied purity, genuine modesty, 



358 The Annunciation. 



womanly dignity, maiden-like grace, holy courage, 
and lofty faith, are blended in such matchless har- 
mony as in her reply to the seraphic messenger: 
"Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me 
according to thy word." No wonder the great 
painters have selected this scene for their noblest 
efforts ; and no wonder they have failed. There is 
too much of heaven in the scene for them. The 
pencil which depicts it, must bring its colors from 
the sphere which supplied its inspiration. 

With one voice you respond to the benediction, 
"Blessed art thou among women!" What woman 
has ever read her history without this feeling? It 
is part of that sublime Magnificat in which her rapt 
soul poured forth its swelling emotions : " From 
henceforth all generations shall call me blessed !" 
Not many days elapsed before her cousin, Elizabeth, 
took up the immortal beatitude, " Blessed art thou 
among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy 
womb !" After He entered upon His ministry, an 
unknown woman standing among a crowd, the her- 
ald of her sex for the coming ages, took up the in- 
spired benison and cried, " Blessed is the womb that 
bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked!" 
And the sweet symphony has been prolonged from 
that day to this ; and will be till the last woman has 
gone up to see and to love Mary as she is. 

And do you join in this benediction? Do you 



The Annunciation. 359 

really feel that the Virgin's lot was exalted far above 
that of all other women ? And would you " give 
the world" to stand in some endearing and kindred 
relation to Jesus ? Let us test your sincerity. Have 
you forgotten His reply to that nameless woman 
who blessed Him from the crowd? " Yea, rather, 
blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and 
keep it." And His yet more remarkable reference 
to Mary herself, on another occasion : " Behold my 
mother and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the 
will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, 
and mother!" (Mark iii. 35.) Do thou "the will of 
God" in receiving Mary's Son into thine heart, and 
at the last day Mary herself will rise up and call 
thee " Blessed !" 



MARY AND ELIZABETH. 



Luke i. 42. 



" Blessed art tlwu among women" 

It was proposed, on the recurrence of this anni- 
versary [Christmas] a year ago, to present in a con- 
nected form such information as the Scriptures give 
us concerning the opening chapter in the life of the 
Virgin Mary. The sermon to which you then lis- 
tened was devoted to the " Annunciation. " Imme- 
diately on the departure of the angel, as we read, 
" Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill- 
country with haste, into a city of Juda; and entered 
into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth. " 

The district allotted to the tribe of Judah was 
traversed by a range of hills running from south to 
north through its central part. This region was 
called the "hill-country." What " city" of this 
neighborhood is intended by the sacred penman is 
not known. The conjecture countenanced by re- 
spectable writers that by "Juda" we arc to under- 
stand Juta or Jutta % a town still standing, seems to 



Mary and Elizabeth, 361 

be without valid warrant. The preferable opinion is 
that the reference is to Hebron, which was a sacred 
city given by Joshua to the sons of Aaron. "There 
was given the promise of Isaac, and the covenant of 
circumcision. There Abraham had his first land, 
and David his first crown. There lay interred Abra- 
ham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah." 
What could be more fitting than that such a city — 
one of the appointed " cities of refuge" withal — 
should be connected with the advent of the promised 
Deliverer? But the question remains, why should 
Mary undertake this journey? Nazareth was sixty- 
five miles north, Hebron eighteen miles south, of 
Jerusalem. With the imperfect modes of locomo- 
tion still proper to Oriental travel, a journey of eighty 
miles would have been something considerable even 
for the head of a family. The customs of her race, 
too, virtually prohibited a single or betrothed female 
from travelling alone. Yet, heedless of all obstacles, 
the Virgin loses no time after the disappearance of 
Gabriel, in setting out for Hebron ; not, we must 
presume, absolutely alone, but probably attended by 
a single servant. Can we find a key to this pro- 
cedure ? Assuredly it was suggested to her by the 
angel. She had received the wonderful announce- 
ment from his lips with an humble, grateful, adoring 
faith, which attested her descent as a genuine daugh- 
ter of Abraham. It is the beneficent law of the Dis- 



362 Mary and Elizabeth. 

pensation now opening upon the world, "to him 
that hath shall be given." Gabriel is therefore com- 
missioned to fortify her faith by means of a " sign" 
pointing to the approaching birth of the Fore-runner 
of the Messiah. The communication he made re- 
specting her " cousin Elizabeth," was only less re- 
markable than his immediate address to the Virgin 
herself. And while she already " believed" (see 
Elizabeth's benediction, ver. 45), yet will she not 
decline that confirmation of her faith which the 
heavenly messenger has invited her to seek in dis- 
tant Hebron. We always love to be reassured 
again and again of the news we wish may be true, 
however implicitly we credit it. 

But there is another aspect of this journey which 
will come home at least to the heart of every woman. 
Never since time began had our globe witnessed a 
transaction so mysterious as that in which Mary was 
to bear so exalted a part. We make no exception 
even in behalf of that familiar intercourse with our 
first parents to which the Creator stooped, before 
the Serpent had seduced them from their steadfast- 
ness. The hour was at hand to which all other 
hours had pointed ; the event towards which all 
other events in the earth's annals had converged. 
The secret yearnings of humanity, which had bur- 
dened all hearts in all lands, were about to be satis- 
fied. The cherished hope of the Hebrew race, which 



Mary and Elizabeth. 363 

had been their only solace through ages of captivity, 
of dispersion, of oppression, was now to be realized. 
The long sequence of prophecies was to receive 
a glorious fulfilment. The august vision which 
prophets and kings had waited for, 

"And died without the sight," 

was to bless the weary world, and from the countless 
millions of her sex who had trod the earth during 
the lapse of four thousand years, Mary of Nazareth 
had been selected of God as the woman through 
whom He would bestow this ineffable blessing upon 
a ruined world. And now the mighty secret had 
been confided to her, — to her alone. What a situa- 
tion for a youthful maiden ! What a charge to be 
laid upon that gentle spirit ! What unutterable 
emotions would agitate her breast! It is too much 
to bear alone. There are crises with us, sometimes 
of sorrow, sometimes of bliss, sometimes of complex, 
conflicting feelings, when we must seek human sym- 
pathy as well as Divine support. At this moment 
there was no one at hand to whom Mary could con- 
fide what had happened. We feel an intuitive con- 
viction that those commentators are far away from 
the truth, who imagine that she went immediately to 
Joseph and rehearsed the details of the angel's visit. 
This is simply incredible; we might almost say im- 
possible. Before lie could be apprised of this great 



;64 Mary and Elizabeth. 



" mystery of godliness" she must take counsel both 
of God and man. Of all persons living, her ven- 
erable cousin, especially after the revelation just 
made to Mary concerning her, was the one to whom 
she would most naturally turn. Aside from the tie 
of consanguinity, it must have been apparent to her 
mind that their histories were in some way to be 
interwoven ; that the marvellous dispensation of God 
towards Elizabeth was to find its interpretation in the 
yet greater marvel of her own experience. In any 
event, it was a womanly instinct which bade her 
hasten to unbosom herself to one whose age and 
piety and affection and kindred circumstances all 
gave presage of the sympathy she required. 

Let us cast a glance now at that favored mansion 
in the " hill-country" which Mary is approaching. 
Six months before, the aged Zacharias had gone up 
to Jerusalem to take his turn in conducting the tem- 
ple-worship, agreeably to the prescribed ritual which 
required each of the twenty- four classes of priests 
to officiate for a week at a time in regular succession. 
As he stood one day before the altar of incense, Ga- 
briel appeared to him and announced the coming 
birth of a son who should be "filled with the Holy 
Ghost," and go before the promised Messiah " in the 
spirit and power of Elijah." This was more than 
the venerable priest could credit. In circumstances 
which assimilate the case very closely to that of 



Mary and Elizabeth. 365 



Abraham, he falls into Abraham's unbelief and de- 
mands a sign. " Whereby shall I know this? for I 
am an old man and my wife well-stricken in years." 
Of course we cannot justify, but can we explain his 
distrust ? May it not be that the proper balance of 
his mind was, for the moment, disturbed by the un- 
wonted vision ? In the history of the patriarchs 
angels appear very often. They re-appear in the 
times of the Judges. Under the prophets and kings 
we see very little of them. They return during the 
captivity, especially as God's messengers to Daniel 
and Zechariah. But we have no record of the ap- 
pearance of an angel for five hundred years, until 
now Gabriel stands by the side of the altar at which 
Zacharias is ministering. It was doubtless as unex- 
pected a visit to the old priest as the appearance of 
an angel here at this moment would be to us. Such 
an epiphany, so abrupt in its advent, so overpowering 
in its splendor, might disconcert even the faith of a 
true Israelite like Zacharias,— the more so when the 
announcement which fell upon his ear seemed so 
incredible. 

There is another explanation of his unbelief, 
founded in the truest philosophy and of the deep- 
est interest. Full justice has been done to it by a 
very able pen. " But how could Zacharias mistrust 
and contradict the word of the angel, whose message 
thus met his heart's deepest aspirations ? At such 

31* 



$66 Mary and Elizabeth. 



o 



moments, when the bestowal of a long-wished-for 
blessing, whose want he thought he had long ago 
got over, is announced to one who is resigned to 
God's dealings, and is declared to be now nigh at 
hand, all the sensibility of his soul is expressed in a 
sudden reaction. The peace of resignation has be- 
come so dear to him. He has felt himself so secure, 
so free, and so proud in that deprivation which he 
has accepted from the hand of God as his lot in life, 
and he is unwilling to be thrown back into his former 
conflicts. Hence it generally happens that there is a 
remnant of bitter reminiscence still unexterminated 
in the depths of the heart. He has once felt him- 
self injured by Providence, but he was constrained 
by his submission to God to oppose, to condemn, to 
deaden such a feeling. But now, amidst the sur- 
prising announcement, the smothered flame of his 
displeasure bursts forth once more. His various 
emotions produce a strong passion, a convulsive effort 
of mind, which seems to repel the promise. Thus 
did Abraham make objections when Isaac was prom- 
ised him ; and Moses seemed no longer gladly will- 
ing when he was at length commissioned to realize 
his youth's highest ideal, and to redeem Israel. And 
Zacharias manifests a similar emotion : ' How shall I 
know this?'"* 

* Lange. 



Mary and Elizabeth. 367 

In one sense his petition was granted : and the 
angelic message was verified by a sign ; but it was 
widely different from the sign he had wanted. 
"Thou shalt be dumb until the day that these things 
shall be performed ; because thou believest not my 
words." Touched by the chastening finger of the 
Almighty, the aged priest retires, a mute, from the 
temple, to resume his functions there only after the 
birth of the promised child. " Departing to his own 
house," he no doubt avoided society, sharing with 
his wife the seclusion she sought ; for we read that 
" she hid herself five months." This season she 
would devote to study, meditation, and prayer, — the 
needful preparation for the scenes that awaited her. 

A few weeks later, a friendly step breaks in upon 
the privacy of the ancient couple. Mary stands be- 
fore Elizabeth ! As among the greetings which had 
passed between woman and woman, the sun had 
never shone upon an interview like this. Here, face 
to face, are the two women whom the King of kings 
Himself delights to honor; one, the mother of "the 
greatest that was born of women" ; the other, the 
mother of his Lord. When has an earthly habita- 
tion been so honored ? Under that humble roof 
were collected all the treasures of earth : that, cer- 
tainly, which alone could give those treasures any 
real value; that, without which the earth itself must 
forever remain a moral wilderness. From that thatch 



36S Mary and Elizabeth. 



among the mountains, a new light was to stream 
forth upon the expectant nations; a fresh fountain 
was to be opened, whose living waters would one 
day reach all the tribes of men. 

The scene itself was in keeping with these sublime 
results. The great Epic Poets of antiquity constantly 
introduce the gods and goddesses into their narra- 
tives, as part of the essential machinery of the drama. 
Here the true Jehovah came ; not the gods of the 
heathen which are no gods. For " Elizabeth was 
filled with the Holy Ghost." And, taught of the 
Spirit in that same hour what she was to speak, she 
returns the salutation of the Virgin, exclaiming, 
" Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the 
fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that 
the mother of my Lord should come to me ?" 
Mary had not yet avowed her errand, much less re- 
cited the visit of the angel. But Elizabeth knows all. 
Rising by a single step to the utmost sublimity of 
faith, she at once recognizes the future Son of Mary 
in His true character and rank, as her "Lord"; 
and pronounces her grateful benediction upon His 
mother. It is the Old Covenant, about to pass away, 
saluting the New. The first benison of the Chris- 
tian dispensation; one which has been taken up and 
reiterated by millions of tongues all adown the ages, 
and which will still be repeated as long as time en- 
dures, "Blessed art tliou among women/" How 



Mary and Elizabeth. 369 

strong the faith, and how beautiful the humility, of 
the venerable matron ! In such a presence, disparity 
of years and all other distinctions become insignifi- 
cant. The illustrious destiny accorded to herself, so 
far from nourishing her pride or enkindling her envy, 
only inspires a profounder reverence for her youthful 
relative. Elizabeth's cup is full, in that the child of 
her old age is appointed to be the Fore-runner of 
Mary's child. And it awakens her astonishment and 
gratitude, that the Mother of her Lord should take 
this long and arduous journey to come to her. 

The Virgin's faith found its reward. The first ac- 
cents from her cousin's lips gave confirmation, as by 
a voice from heaven, to all that Gabriel had prom- 
ised. And as the beatitude of welcome ceased, her 
own ecstatic joy poured itself forth in that lofty 
Psalm of praise which the Church has embalmed as 
the " Magnificat of the Virgin Mary." The struc- 
ture of this sublime effusion connects it with the Old 
Testament, while its glowing delineations of the Mes- 
siah identify it with the New. Not to attempt any 
analysis or exposition of its terms, there is something 
peculiarly impressive and animating, something pic- 
turesque, one might almost say, in this Messianic 
Hymn from the lips of the Messiah's Mother. When 
Gabriel appeared to her, he exclaimed, " Blessed art 
thou among women.'' When Elizabeth met her, it 
was with the same salutation, " Blessed art thou 



370 Mary and Elizabeth. 

among women." And now, filled with the Holy 
Ghost, she appropriates the august benediction : 
" Behold, from henceforth all generations shall call 
me blessed. " The Roman Catholics profess to find 
here a warrant for their " Ave Marias!' But without 
reason. What grosser wrong could be done to the 
memory of the Virgin, than to pretend that she here 
sets herself up as a goddess to be worshipped ? How 
her whole soul would have revolted, had she been 
told that Christian Churches and nations would pray 
to her, as the " Queen of the world," the " Ladder 
of Heaven," the "Throne of God," the " Gate of 
Paradise," and the like! That they would even go 
to the blasphemous extreme of saying to her in 
offices of devotion, " Command thy Son ;" " Com- 
mand thy Son by the right of a mother;" " Compel 
God to be merciful unto sinners." Such phrases 
abound in their books. Is this to call Mary 
" blessed," — to raise her to the throne of the uni- 
verse ; to give her a place, as the painters constantly 
do in their domes and altar-pieces, among the 
Trinity; and even to represent the Sacred Three as 
uniting to do her reverence? No one whose mind 
has not been thoroughly shackled and debased by a 
superstitious training, can require a word of argu- 
ment to vindicate that humble, holy woman from all 
sympathy with this idolatry. Next to her u God 
and Saviour," there can be no being in the universe 



Mary and Elizabeth. 






to whom, if she is permitted to >ec- 

tacle can be so offensive, of countless churches dedi- 

ted to her worship and robbing Jehovah of His 
due to exalt her. 

Yet bell us that it is they alone through 

whom her prophetic aspiration is realized, 4< All gen- 
erations shall call me Bless We deny it And 
in confutation of the claim, we appeal to the uni- 
al sentiment of the Protestant world. We have 
our representative in that unknown woman who cried 
one day from the crowd assembled around the 
our, " B'essed is the womb that bare Thee, and 
the paps which Thou hast sucked ! ' We 
accord to the Virgin the highest place among 
:en. We can conceive of no loftier distinction 
than that which has enshrined her name in all hu- 
man hearts. And yet we cannot, we dare not, con- 
trovert the prompt and emphatic response of the 
our to that fervid panegyric. "Yea. rather, 
blessed are they that hear the Word of God and 
keep it." May not the conjecture be allowed, that 
He uttered this quasi-rebuke with a special aim ? 
that there rose up before His mind, at the moment, 
-ion of that gro— M which was to mark 
the fatal apostasy of the Church in after-ages, and 
He felt constrained to brand it in advance with His 
displeasure, and to assure His people that in faith- 
fully keeping Gods commands they would attain a 



; 7 2 Mary and Elizabeth. 



blessing even beyond that which rested upon His 
mother's head? Does the Romish Church believe 
this? Is not the whole current of its teaching and 
practice directly in the face of it? We Protestants 
are free to confess that we are not ready to honor 
the Virgin at the expense of her Son. We tell that 
Church that, in our esteem, the true way to honor 
her is to abide by the rule she herself laid down on 
the first occasion when they appeared in public to- 
gether, after His baptism: " Whatsoever He saith 
unto you, do it!' This direction to the servants at 
the marriage-festival of Cana carries within it the 
germ of a universal principle. It is precisely what 
Mary would have said to any other group, of what- 
ever rank or occupation, at any period of His minis- 
try. We arrogate nothing in maintaining that, if 
she could now revisit the world, she would hasten to 
the deluded crowds who are kneeling at her altars, 
and indignantly shout in their ears, " See you do it 
not : I am your fellow-servant, and of those who 
have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God!' And 
ill vain would they search among the recorded teach- 
ings of her exalted Son for a solitary utterance which 
might countenance the worship they offer her. But 
this theme is enticing us from our narrative. 

Their psalms of welcome and thanksgiving ended, 
these two favored women retire from our view. The 
only additional fact related of Mary's visit is, that it 



Mary and Elizabeth. 37 



0/0 



lasted 44 about three months/ 1 How the silences of 
Scripture try us ! And what a proof they supply 
that the Bible is of God ! What uninspired historian 
(or novelist, if you will) could have passed over a 
visit like this in silence? Here are the two most 
remarkable women of their time not only, but of all 
time, brought together under the same roof, and 
united in the most intimate fellowship for three 
months. Who would not exchange his whole 
library for a faithful diary of those fleeting weeks? 
Who would not prize the journal of a single day; 
the privilege of looking in upon this wondrous pair 
whom angels and the Lord of angels had visited, 
and gathering up the words that fell from their lips? 
What rehearsings of their own personal experiences! 
What grateful retrospection of the stupendous events 
of their national annals! What eager searchings 
into the meaning of those old types and prophecies 
which pointed to the coming Deliverer and His 
Fore-runner! What large discourse, day by day, of 
the new era about to dawn upon the world, and the 
endless possibilities involved in the advent of the 
Messiah and the setting up among men of the king- 
dom that was to know no end ! What hallowed 
communings with God! What a mutual unbosom- 
ing of all the hopes and joys and anxieties which 
must have filled to repletion the hearts of these two 
blessed women, at this momentous crisis in their 



374 Mary and Elizabeth. 



history and, not less, in the history of the world ! 
These things we may presume: but the curtain has 
not been lifted on them. All we know is that, at 
the c\u\ of three months, Mary left the hill-country 
and " returned to her own house." 

u Her own house." This shows that Joseph had 
not yet taken her to his house. And, now, can he 
take her? This is the question of questions with 
this faithful Israelite. It is not for us to reproduce 
all the causes and implements of embarrassment 
which were accumulated around him. We are not 
equal to that task : no one could compass it. And 
if it were possible to comprehend his situation fully, 
this would be no place to depict it in its details. 
Enough that on her return from that long absence 
which, occurring soon after their betrothment, might 
seem inexplicable to him, he was on the point of 
44 putting her away;" but " privately," as justice and 
humanity dictated. This could not be permitted. 
The angel of the Lord comes to him in a vision and 
sets his mind at rest. Shall we not add, and in 
quieting Joseph's fears, set her mind also at rest? 
For this passage in their lives must have been a 
crucible of fire to them both. 

We have now had, first, the visit of the angel to 
Zacharias announcing the approaching birth of the 
Elijah of the New Economy, with the mistrust and 
penal dumbness of the aged priest. Secondly, the 



Mary and Elizabeth. 375 

scene of the Annunciation between Gabriel and the 
Virgin. Thirdly, the meeting of Mary and Eliza- 
beth with their inspired hymns of praise, foreshad- 
owing the glories of the coming Immanuel. But 
the great event is still delayed. One step more 
remains. The herald must precede his Prince. And 
in due time the son of Elizabeth is born. Another 
psalm rises to God : this time from lips that had for 
nine months been sealed. The tongue of the now 
believing priest is loosed, and his paean of thanks- 
giving blends with those uttered long before by his 
exulting wife and the Virgin of Nazareth. We see 
in it both the priest and the father ; a beautiful 
blending of the sublime mission of the coming 
Saviour, with the exalted honor assigned to the new- 
born infant as the " Prophet of the Highest," who was 
to " go before the face of the Lord to prepare His 
ways," — the last and sweetest strain of the Old Tes- 
tament prophecy melting away into the immortal 
song so soon to resound through all the aisles and 
arches of the New Testament Church. 

No further delay is possible. The fulness of the 
time has come. Joseph and Mary repair to Bethle- 
hem. And there " she brought forth her first-born 
Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling-clothes, and 
laid Him in a manger." The angels sing their 
Christmas carol, and ravish the midnight sky with 
their unimagined melody. The shepherds hasten to 



376 Mary and Elizabeth. 



pay their homage to the Divine Child, and return 
" glorifying and praising God for all the things that 
they had heard and sccn. ,} And later (probably after 
the forty days at the end of which the holy Child was 
presented in the temple), the Magi come on their 
mysterious errand, to lay the treasures of the Orient 
at the feet of the Infant Redeemer. Not to dilate 
upon these alluring themes, we follow the thread of 
the Virgin's history. 

We meet them next, the whole group, Joseph and 
Mary and the Child, at the temple. And here, 
again, the long-cherished hopes and ecstatic joy of 
the great heart of humanity find utterance in majes- 
tic song. Again the psalmist is a venerable sage 
whose piety had been crowned with a distinction as 
priceless as it was unusual. For it had been re- 
vealed to him " that he should not see death before 
he had seen the Lord's Christ." Till the Messiah 
came Simeon was immortal. No sickness, no acci- 
dent, no violence could reach him. Of all the mil- 
lions of the human race at that period, he alone 
knew, when he laid his head upon his pillow at 
night, that he would see the morning; and when the 
sun arose that he would see it set, — unless the wished- 
for advent should intervene. Day by day the old 
man went up to the temple to " wait for the Consola- 
tion of Israel." And when at length the "Consola- 
tion of Israel" came, he took Him from His mother's 



Mary and Elizabeth. $77 

arms and sang his " swan-like song" of welcome to 
the great Deliverer. It is a Jew who sings, but it is 
not a Jewish greeting. The Child he clasps with 
such unutterable joy is not the Hope of his own race 
merely, the Emancipator of the oppressed Hebrews : 
but the Redeemer of the world. " Mine eyes have 
seen Thy salvation which Thou hast prepared before 
the face of all people ; a Light to lighten the Gen- 
tiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel." Already 
the u middle-wall of partition" is breaking down ; 
and in the distance the Gentiles are seen coming to 
His light, and kings to the brightness of His rising. 
Yet even this festal scene must have its shadow. 
While the old Jew portrays the great salvation, he 
foresees that it is to be achieved by suffering. To 
reach His crown, this Child must travel by the 
cross. And into this mother's cup, to-day so full of 
bliss, must be infused that bitterness which is the 
bane of all human joys. Not only was her Child to 
be for a sign that should be spoken against, but " a 
sword should pierce through her own soul also." 
Mercifully for herself, she could not fathom the full 
import of this prediction now. But neither could it 
fail to alloy the transport of that hour.* Soon 



* Who that has seen the Madonna di San Sislo of Raphael can 
ever forget the expression of the Virgin's face in this greatest of 
paintings ? 

32* 



378 Mary and Elizabeth. 



enough was the prophecy interpreted to her. With 
the opening of His public ministry He began to 
be M spoken against" ; and every word of reproach 
directed against Him, she would feel as if heaped 
upon herself. These sorrows, accumulating for 
three years, at length reached their crisis on that 
memorable day when she stood in mute anguish by 
the cross. Then was Simeon's touching prophecy 
fulfilled. 

" At the cross her station keeping, 
Stands the mournful mother weeping, 

Close to Jesus to the last : 
Through her heart His sorrow sharing, 
All Mis bitter .anguish bearing, 

Now at length the sword has pass'd !" 

But our errand to-day is at the temple. It is not 
enough that one sex welcomes the Saviour. As if 
in grateful recognition of the exalted benefits woman 
was to reap from His incarnation, the aged Prophet- 
ess, Anna, who " dwelt in the house of the Lord," 
appears at the instant and pronounces her benedic- 
tion upon the infant. What a group for a painter! 
What a group for any true disciple ! Old Simeon 
standing by the altar with the holy Child in his 
arms; Mary in her virgin modesty, and Joseph, 
listening to his inspired words, and " marvelling" as 
he speaks; and then this dear old saint of fourscore 
and four, her face, we must believe, radiant with 



Mary and Elizabeth. 379 

celestial fervor, coming in and joining her blessing 
to that of the patriarch, — altogether it was a specta- 
cle worthy to engage the attention of angelic hosts. 
Can we doubt that they folded their wings and en- 
camped around it, enjoying as only angels could 
enjoy so rare a convocation ? This service over, 
Anna, already breathing the spirit of the New Dis- 
pensation, " spake of the Lord to all them that were 
looking for redemption in Jerusalem," and so be- 
came " the first preacher of Christ in the City of the 
Great King." 

Following what I believe to be the true harmony 
of the several narratives, the visit of the Magi took 
place, as already hinted, soon after the presentation 
in the temple. And then immediately occurred the 
flight into Egypt. Thus far the young Child had 
been heralded and greeted only by Hosannas. But 
this cannot last. He comes not to triumph only, 
but to suffer: not simply to be born, but to die. A 
few friendly hearts, unknown to fame, tender Him 
their grateful sympathy. But even in His helpless 
infancy He must be made to feel that the powers of 
this world are against Him. Its true spirit was in- 
carnate in Herod the Great, a very monster of 
cruelty. Attempts have been made to discredit 
Matthew's narrative of his plot for the destruction 
of Jesus, chiefly on the ground that Josephus does 
not mention it. But (ij this is merely negative evi- 



380 Mary and Elizabeth. 

<\n\\c£. His silence proves nothing. (2) It is easily 
accounted for. Josephus wrote as a Jew. Incredi- 
ble as it might seem, he devotes but a single brief 
paragraph to the entire history of Jesus Christ, 
although born only four years after the crucifixion, 
and necessarily conversant with the great events of 
His life. He could not well refer to the " murder of 
the innocents" without saying more of the birth and 
character of Jesus than he cared to say. (3) Sup- 
posing him to have known of this transaction, it 
would be too much eclipsed by other barbarities of 
Herod to make any deep impression upon his mind. 
For he takes rank with those demi-fiends who have 
found their recreation in deeds of blood. He slew 
his subjects by wholesale. He put to death his wife 
Mariamne and her three sons, the last of them a few 
days only before his own death. His thirst for 
blood was not slaked even at the end of seventy 
years, and when his last illness was consciously 
hastening to rid the world of him. For even then, 
knowing that the nation would rejoice over his re- 
moval, he issued a secret order (happily not carried 
out) directing that the principal men of Jerusalem 
should be shut up in the Hippodrome, and executed 
as soon as he ceased to breathe, that so there might 
be mourning in Jerusalem for them if the people 
would not mourn for him. What figure would the 
slaughter of a few infants make in the career of such 



Mary and Elizabeth. 38 1 

a demon? And then (4) it is not certain that Jose- 
phus had heard of this event. The murder of the 
children, possibly, was a very different affair from 
that depicted with such effect by the painters ; differ- 
ent from the view conveyed to our own minds by a 
casual reading of the Evangelist. It has been com- 
puted that the children of two years old and under, 
in the vicinity of Bethlehem, did not number more 
than ten or twelve : we may be tolerably certain 
there were not above a score. Nor are we shut up 
to any specific theory as to the method of disposing 
of them. Whatever our traditional belief, it must 
seem highly improbable, on reflection, that Herod 
should have commissioned a band of soldiers to ran- 
sack the district and openly massacre the doomed 
children. He was not so penurious in his arts and 
implements of cruelty as this. For myself, at least, 
I incline to adopt the exposition suggested by a 
writer already quoted in this discourse as follows: 

41 It was Spring. The parents were for the most 
part occupied in the fields. Soon, however, first one, 
and then another, missed one of their children. One 
disappeared. Another was found suffocated, poi- 
soned, or stabbed, and bathed in its own blood. In 
these mysterious and dreadful events, however, one 
strange feature of resemblance uniformly prevailed ; 
viz., that only boys were slain, and none over two 
years old. The number of these unfortunates could 



382 Mary and Elizabeth. 



not be great ; but the suffering and fear were terribly 
increased by the mystery and inevitable nature of the 
danger. Whence these terrible assassinations arose, 
no political writer, and no Jew except the hired mur- 
derers could know. But Christian feeling, which 
had been warned against the attempts of the tyrant 
[set/, by the * wise men?'], and knew the meaning 
of the circumstance that the slain children were 
two years old and under, could say with certainty: 
* Herod is the originator of this deed.' " * However 
that may have been, the parties most deeply inter- 
ested were far away from the seat of danger. For, 
apprised by an angel of the tyrant's designs, Joseph 
and Mary with the Child had already gone down to 
Egypt. According to the best chronologists, their 
sojourn there was brief, for Herod survived this 
last feat of brutal violence but a very short time. 
Again the angel visits Joseph and recalls them from 
their exile. They return to Palestine but not to Beth- 
lehem. Under heavenly guidance, they go back to 
their own city, and Nazareth becomes for thirty years 
the home of the Incarnate Word, " God manifest in 
the flesh." 

It is time to pause; although we have advanced 
only a very few steps in the history of the Virgin. 
In its early chapters, her life is intertwined with the 

* Lange. 



Mary and Elizabeth. 383 

life of her M First-born." Nothing pertaining to His 
infancy can be unimportant to us. Concise and frag- 
mentary as the record is, it must impress every 
thoughtful mind with the wisdom and might of that 
benign Providence which controls all creatures and 
all events. In raising up a woman like Mary, of the 
44 seed royal," to become the mother of our Lord ; 
in providing for her at a season of the utmost need, 
a prudent, devout, and sympathizing friend like Eliz- 
abeth ; in keeping her reputation spotless in the 
eyes of her husband, and enlisting him as the grate- 
ful protector of her life and character; in preparing 
competent witnesses to bear inspired testimony to 
the rank and mission of her Child ; in sheltering her 
and her Infant from the fury of an insane tyrant who 
could make the resources of a kingdom subservient 
to his malevolent purposes, — how much is there in 
all this to illustrate the wonder-working Providence 
of God ! 

Again, what a prophetic picture have we in these 
scenes of the future of Christ and His Church ! 
Look at the variety of characters grouped together 
here, — Joseph, Mary, Elizabeth, Zacharias, Simeon, 
Anna, the Shepherds, the Magi, Herod, — all perma- 
nent types, representing classes to be reproduced 
wherever the Gospel should be preached; all exem- 
plifying more or less distinctly the influence of a 
Saviour's birth and doctrine upon the human heart. 



$4 Mary and Elizabeth. 



Now as then, there are doubters like Zacharias 
amotig the believing. There are disciples like Mary 
and Elizabeth, whose lives are a perpetual psalm of 
praise to the Messiah. There are faithful sentinels 
who stand like Simeon and Anna upon their watch- 
towers, waiting and yearning for the second coming 
of the " Consolation of Israel." There are gen- 
erous souls like the Eastern sages that never weary 
in bringing their gifts of gold and frankincense 
and myrrh, and casting them at the Saviour's feet. 
And there are atheistic philosophers and savage 
rulers who, like Herod, anathematize Jesus of Naza- 
reth, and would gladly extirpate His religion. 

Let us see to it that we take our place among those 
who deem it their highest honor to do honor to the 
Son of Mary. In the unwavering faith, the humility, 
the courage, the gentleness, the sympathy, the holy 
love and constancy, which graced her character, we 
have an example worthy of our devout study, and 
eminently fitted to draw even our unbelieving hearts 
heavenward. And remember — that whatever of rev- 
erence or admiration you may now profess for her, in 
her esteem and, what is infinitely more, in the award 
of her God and yours at the last day, it will all go 
for naught — nay, it will turn to your everlasting un- 
doing—if you refuse to receive and serve the Son of 
her love as your only Saviour. 



THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY NOT A 
PRIESTHOOD. 



I. Timothy iii. i. 



" This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of 
a bishop, he desireth a good work." 

Whole libraries have been written on the thesis 
propounded in this sentence: "the office of a Bishop." 
The controversy respecting it involves the very na- 
ture, as well as the constitution, of the Christian 
Ministry. On both these points conflicting and in- 
compatible theories have long divided the Church. 
A full discussion of these theories would be quite 
impracticable within the limits of an ordinary dis- 
course; but the general subject may properly en- 
gage our attention on an occasion like the present. 

There are two leading theories on the nature, and 
two on the constitution, of the Ministry. Waiving 
the consideration of the latter of these topics, except 
in a very cursory way, the doctrine held by our own 
Church, and by most of the Protestant churches, 

33 3^5 



$86 The Christian Ministry 



concerning the former, is, that the Ministry has been 
constituted to fe^iX, and, in conjunction with the rep- 
resentatives of the people, to govern the Church ; 
that its chief functions are, to preach the Gospel and 
administer the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's 
Supper, together with the exercise of discipline ; and 
that " its power is wholly moral, or spiritual, and 
tliat only ministerial or declarative." * 

According to the other view, the Christian Minis- 
try is a Pricstlwod. The radical idea of Priesthood 
is that of mediation between God and man. A priest 
is " one who stands as a mediator between God and 
the people, and brings them to God by virtue of cer- 
tain ceremonial acts which he performs for them, and 
which they could not perform for themselves without 
profanation, because they are at a distance from 
God, and cannot, in their own persons, venture to 
approach towards Him." The leading function of 
the Levitical priests was to offer sacrifices. " For 
every high-priest, taken from among men, is or- 
dained for men in things pertaining to God," is set 
apart to transact with God on behalf of men, and for 
their good, " that he may offer both gifts and sacri- 
fices for sin." The whole structure of the Mosaic 
tem was designed to impress the chosen people 
with a profound sense of the Divine majesty and 

* Form of Government of the Presbyterian Church, Chap. VIII. 



Not a Priesthood. 387 

purity, and of the essential turpitude of sin. Every 
part of its complicated ritual admonished them that 
they could have no friendly intercourse with a holy 
God, except through a mediator. Aaron and his 
sons were the constituted media of communication 
between them and the Deity. The endless infrac- 
tions of the theocratic code, of which they were per- 
petually guilty, could be expiated only through the 
intervention of the priest. Nor was it for the pur- 
poses of atonement and intercession simply that his 
agency must be invoked. It was no less indispensa- 
ble in all their civil and martial transactions; in their 
battles and in their journeys ; in their husbandry and 
in their trafficking; in their public assemblies, and 
in the familiar routine of domestic life. Every- 
where, on opening the Old Testament, we see the 
priest standing before the altar, — at once the most 
urgent necessity, and the most expressive epitome, 
of the system. 

Rome has transferred this element, the very heart 
and core of the Mosaic dispensation, into the new 
economy. The priesthood is perpetuated m the Chris- 
tian Church. And since a priesthood implies the 
offering of sacrifice, she has transmuted the simplest 
of rites, the Lord's Supper, into the veritable and 
ever-recurring sacrifice of the Son of God ; and chal- 
lenges for her "priests' 1 the prerogative of absolv- 
ing transgressors from the penalty of the Divine law. 



388 The Christian Ministry 

11 If any one shall say (so she has ordained) that 
there is not in the New Testament a visible and ex- 
ternal priesthood, or that there is no power in it of 
consecrating and offering the very body and blood 
of the Lord, and of remitting and retaining sins, but 
only an office of the bare ministry of preaching the 
Gospel ; or, that those who do not preach the Gospel 
are not priests, let him be anathema"* They stand 
where the Aaronic priests stood, between God and 
man. There can be no acceptable approach to God 
except through them ; no pardon except through 
their impetration and the sacrifice of the mass. 
Whoever would be reconciled to God, whoever 
would be cleansed from sin, whoever would receive 
an answer to his prayers, whoever would triumph 
over death, must invoke the mediation of the priest. 
The sacrifice he presents, and the sacraments he ad- 
ministers, are clothed with an efficacy which meets 
every want and provides for every exigency of our 
moral nature. And no one need fear for the result 
who is willing to confide the whole business of his 
salvation to his priest. 

The germs of this system are to be detected in the 
Church at a very early period. " Whilst the least prob- 
ability remained that Jerusalem might, at one time or 
other, again rear its head from the dust, the Christian 

unci! of Trent, Session XXIII. 



Not a Priesthood. 389 

teachers and elders assumed to themselves no titles 
or distinctions, at least none but the most modest 
and humble ones. But when the fate of that glo- 
rious city had been finally sealed by Hadrian, and 
not the most distant hope could any longer be enter- 
tained by the Jews of seeing their ancient govern- 
ment re-established, these same pastors and ministers, 
for the most part, conceived a wish to have it believed 
by their flocks that they themselves had succeeded 
to the rights of the Jewish priesthood. The bishops, 
therefore, made it their business thenceforward to 
inculcate the notion that they were invested with a 
character resembling that of the great high-priest of 
the Jews, and were consequently possessed of all 
those rights which had been recognized as belonging 
to the Jewish pontiff. The functions of the ordinary 
Jewish priests were, in like manner, stated to have 
devolved, though under a more perfect form, on the 
presbyters of the Christian Church ; and, finally, the 
deacons were placed on a parallel with the Levites, 
or inferior ministers of the temple."* 

These distinctions, originating in the ambition of 
the ecclesiastics, and stimulated by the reproaches 
cast alike by Jews and pagans upon the simplicity of 
the Christian ritual, gradually assumed more and 
more of the sacerdotal type, until at length the 

* Mosheim's Commentaries. 

33* 



390 The Christian Ministry 



clergy set up the monstrous assumption of exclusive 
mediatorship between heaven and earth, and the 
Church was loaded with the brilliant but galling 
chains of a Levitical bondage. 

The grossness of this system might seem sufficient 
to repel any intelligent and serious reader of the New- 
Testament ; and yet, the radical principle which per- 
vades it has been adopted and elaborately vindicated 
by large numbers of so-called Protestant prelates and 
clergymen, on both sides of the Atlantic. Like 
Rome, they make the ministry a " priesthood" ; and 
present to the world the anomaly of a sacerdotal 
Christianity. The house of God is a • • temple," with 
its " altar" and its " sacrifice" ; and they are the hiero- 
phants who celebrate its " mysteries." They consti- 
tute, with the priesthood of the other hierarchies, the 
only legitimate channel of spiritual communion be- 
tween this world and heaven. If one would worship 
God, he must wait upon their ministrations; for they 
alone have free access to the mercy- seat. If he 
would be pardoned, forgiveness comes only through 
their intervention. If he would obtain renewing and 
sanctifying grace, he must receive the sacraments at 
their hands. For, they only have " the gift of the 
Holy Ghost"; they are the stewards of the Church, 
— the depository of Divine grace ; and this grace it 
is their prerogative to dispense in baptism and the 
Lord's Supper. The Eucharist, of course, is a "sac- 



Not a Priesthood. 391 

rifice" ; and they are empowered to pronounce an 
authoritative absolution upon all in whose behalf 
they " offer" it. 

Without enlarging on the details of this system, it 
must be apparent that there are no powers exercised 
by any set of men, of whatever nation or country, 
paramount to those which are challenged for this 
pretended priesthood. They claim, in effect, to be 
the vicegerents of the Deity. They are, in a sense, 
the arbiters of our destiny. The keys have been 
placed in their custody, and our salvation or perdi- 
tion is suspended upon their using one or the other 
of them as they may see fit ! 

We have a right to demand, that an order of men 
who arrogate to themselves prerogatives like these, 
shall produce the clearest possible credentials ; that 
nothing shall be wanting to authenticate their com- 
mission in the most unequivocal manner ; and that 
they shall be able to show us, in that volume to 
which they and we appeal as the charter of the 
Church, the statute which creates their order and 
defines its powers, its functions, and its ceremonial. 
The Levitical priests could do this. No inconsider- 
able portion of the last four books of the Pentateuch 
is devoted to them. For every jot and tittle of their 
system, from the august rites of the great day of 
atonement down to the very fringe of their robes 
and the pins of the tabernacle, they could produce a 



39- The Christian Ministry 

"Thus saith the Lord." And from men who claim 
to have been armed with loftier powers than were 
ever conferred upon the sons of Aaron, the world 
cannot be expected to put up with a less authorita- 
tive warrant. 

What, then, must be thought of these soaring pre- 
tensions, when it is stated that not only is there no 
decree creating such an order to be found, but that 
the New Testament does not contain one zvord about 
an official human priesthood in the Christian Church ? 
To estimate the force of this omission, it must be 
considered, that down to the period of the Saviour's 
ascension, a religion without a priesthood was a novelty 
unheard of among mankind,* — as, indeed, with the 
solitary exception of Christianity (I am speaking, it 
will be understood, of an earthly priesthood), it is 
unknown to this day. What would the gorgeous 
mythology of Greece, or that of Rome, have been 
without the priest and the sacrifice? Abstract the 
sacerdotal element, and what would remain of Bud- 
dhism, of Lamaism, or of any of the countless forms 
of idolatry with which the earth is cursed ? In each 
and all of these cases, the principle is not so much 
an adjunct of the system as the system itself; not the 
mere anatomy, but nerves, arteries, muscles, every- 
thing. And this was as true of Judaism as it is of 



Dr, Whately has suggested this thought. 



Not a Priesthood. 39^ 



the false religions. It would scarcely savor of extrava- 
gance to say, that men trained as the apostles had been, 
could not, except through a special baptism of the 
Spirit, have conceived of a religion without a human 
priesthood. There was no sentiment more sacredly 
enshrined in their national cultus, no lesson set forth 
with greater solemnity in their daily worship, than 
that the intervention of the priest was indispensable 
to their coming acceptably into the presence of God. 
With such power had this conviction intrenched 
itself in the popular mind, so completely were all 
their mental habits and associations transfused with 
the ancient leaven, that the Jewish converts resisted 
to the utmost the doctrine that Christianity was to 
annul and supersede their own ritual. 

In the view of facts like these, it is a most remark- 
able and significant circumstance that, in passing 
from the Old Testament to the New, we should leave 
behind the whole vocabulary of terms proper to a 
sacerdotal system. The writers seem no longer to 
be Jews. The faith of which they are the accredited 
historians and expositors knows no Priest except 
Jesus of Nazareth, no sacrifice except the "Lamb 
of God," no Mediator except Him "who ever liveth 
to make intercession for us." His people are styled 
" a holy priesthood" ; and are said to offer up 
"spiritual sacrifices." But the terms "priest" and 
"sacrifice" are not once applied in the New Testa- 



^94 lh c Christian Ministry 



ment to Christian ministers, as such, and their official 
functions. 

It has, indeed, been claimed that there is a single 
passage which constitutes an exception to this re- 
mark, to wit, Rom. xv. 16: "That I should be 
the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, minister- 
ing fyepoopyouvra) the Gospel of God, that the offering 
up (npodpopty of the Gentiles might be acceptable, 
being sanctified by the Holy Ghost." Here, we are 
told, the apostle describes himself as " ministering as 
a priest the Gospel of God, that the sacrificing of the 
Gentiles might be acceptable." That he compares 
himself to the Jewish priests is certain; but that 
he makes himself a priest in the Christian Church, 
is an interpretation which requires the " offering up 
of the Gentiles" to be taken as a literal " sacrifice," 
for which no one has yet contended. The whole 
phraseology is figurative, and, in the circumstances 
of the writer of the Epistle, equally natural and ex- 
pressive. Dr. Whitby's comment on the verse is as 
follows : " Here is a plain allusion to the Jewish sac- 
rifices offered by the priest, and sanctified or made 
acceptable and savory by the Libatnen offered with 
it: for he compares himself, in the preaching of the 
Gospel, to the priest, sacris operand, conversant about 
his sacrifice, to prepare and fit it to be offered. The 
Gentiles dedicated by him to the service of God, 
arc his sacrifice or oblation; the Holy Spirit is the 



Not a Priesthood. 395 



Libamcn poured on this sacrifice, by which they are 
sanctified and rendered acceptable to God." 

It has been further argued that the New Testa- 
ment recognizes the Christian ministry as a priest- 
hood, since they are intrusted with " the power of 
the keys," which is explained to mean " the power 
of forgiving sin." To this it is a sufficient reply, 
that whatever the power of binding and loosing may 
denote, the efficacious remission of sin is not a sacer- 
dotal but a judicial function. We need not, there- 
fore, stop to inquire whether the right of absolution 
appertains to the Christian ministry; for even if they 
had that right (which they certainly have not, in the 
Romish sense of the term), it would not prove them 
to be priests. 

Had it been the design of the Saviour to perpet- 
uate the ancient priesthood, or to institute a new 
order of priests in His Church, He could not have 
failed to announce it in sending forth His apostles. 
But neither in the mission of the seventy, nor in the 
first or second mission of the twelve, have we the 
least intimation of such a purpose. Rarely has our 
globe been the theatre of a more imposing ceremo- 
nial than that with which Aaron and his successors 
were consecrated to the Jewish priesthood. God 
Himself was pleased to prescribe every part of the 
service, down to the fabric, the form, and the decora- 
tions of their vestments ; and on the appointed day, 



396 The Christian Ministry 



in the presence of the assembled millions of Israel 
they were inducted into office. The time would 
fail me to describe this august solemnity, — the in- 
vestiture of the high-priest with his gorgeous in- 
signia, the anointing with oil, the sin-offering, the 
burnt-offering, the ram of consecration, the sprink- 
ling of blood, the seven days and nights of seclusion 
in the tabernacle, and the series of sacrifices which 
followed, for the priests and the people. On these 
details we cannot dwell. But contrast with this 
stately pageant the corresponding transaction under 
the new economy, the inauguration of the Christian 
ministry. No concourse of awe-struck and admir- 
ing spectators meets us here ; no ephod nor mitre, 
no temple nor altar, no smoking holocaust nor fra- 
grant incense. The sacerdotal paraphernalia all dis- 
appear ; and in place thereof a spectacle presents 
itself, the sublime simplicity of which symbolizes the 
essential diversity between the preliminary and the 
final dispensation. The Saviour of the world, about 
to ascend to heaven, calls His eleven apostles around 
Him, and bids them " go into all the world and 
preach the Gospel to every creature, baptizing them 
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost." And these men, anointed with 
the Spirit, went forth to their work.* Clad in their 

Book of the Priesthood" has a fine passage on this 



Not a Priesthood. 397 

ordinary vestments, and disencumbered of all Levit- 
ical implements, they addressed themselves to their 
mission as men who were " not ashamed of the Gos- 
pel of Christ." " Beginning at Jerusalem/' with such 
energy did they wield the sword of the Spirit, that 
at the close of their first day's labors three thousand 
converts stood up to testify that Jesus of Nazareth, 
whom their rulers " had taken and with wicked 
hands had crucified and slain," was, indeed, their 
promised Messiah, — "the Mighty God, the ever- 
lasting Father, the Prince of Peace." This re- 
splendent victory achieved, they scattered abroad 
through all the circumjacent regions, sowing broad- 
cast the seed of the incorruptible word. They 
erected no altars. They consecrated no priests. 
They offered no sacrifices. They bade no Israelite 
go up to Jerusalem to worship. No utterance fell 
from their lips about the sanctity of the temple, or 
the efficacy of its rites. Spurning the swaddling- 
bands of the old economy, they neither confined 
their ministrations to " holy places," nor restricted 
them to the chosen people. They preached, indif- 
ferently, in the synagogues and in the streets, in 
prisons and in palaces, in the desert and on the 
strand, to the Macedonian women by the river-side 
at Philippi, and to the sages of Athens on the crest 
of the Areopagus. And so far from offering them- 
selves as " mediators" with God, to replace the now 

34 



598 The Christian Ministry 



abrogated priesthood of the house of Aaron, there 
was nothing they repelled with such instinctive hor- 
ror as any attempt to exalt them to this dignity or 
to pay them sacerdotal homage. (See Acts iii. 12; 
x. 25, 26; xiv. 1 1 — 1 8.) They constantly proclaimed 
that he who planted was nothing, and he who watered 
nothing; and that to trust in them or their min- 
istrations was to dishonor their Master. Their 
one grand, absorbing, delightful theme, was "Jesus 
Christ and Him crucified." Their only aim was 
so to exalt the Saviour of the world that they and 
their gifts and miracles should be lost sight of. 
Jesus Christ as the only Priest, the only Altar, the 
only Sacrifice, the only Intercessor, of the new 
dispensation, — this was the burden of their teachings 
in all lands and with people of every faith and every 
school of philosophy. Addressing themselves to 
the universal necessity of the race, they hastened 
from city to city, and from province to province, 
crying, " Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh 
away the six of the world." The slumbering 
nations were stirred by the unwonted sound to their 
lowest depths ; and the victory of Pentecost, re- 
peated in different and distant lands, authenticated 
the doctrine as divine, and confounded those who 
would have impeached the one exclusive, unchange- 
able, and efficacious Priesthood of Jesus Christ in 
the New Testament Church. 



Not a Priesthood. 399 



We appeal, then, to the entire structure of the 
New Testament, and especially to the absence of 
all sacerdotal terms and titles as applied to the 
office-bearers in the Church, as our first argument 
to prove that the Christian Ministry is not a 
Priesthood. 

Our second argument has just been hinted. The 
doctrine of an official human priesthood in the 
Church, is in a high degree derogatory to the Lord 
Jesus Christ as the only Priest of the new dispensa- 
tion. 

No one imbued with a becoming reverence for the 
Deity would permit himself to disparage the Leviti- 
cal economy. That economy was impressed with 
the wisdom and goodness which mark all the Divine 
institutions. Not only was the sacerdotal element 
which pervaded it in harmony with its general theo- 
cratic character, but it was indispensable to the 
fulfilment of its ends, as a preliminary and typical 
dispensation. Its priesthood was a real priesthood, 
and, within the prescribed sphere, their rites had a 
genuine efficacy, — because they pointed to the great 
High-Priest and the true sacrifice. 

But what place is there for an earthly priesthood 
now ? The antitype has appeared. The victim has 
been slain. The High-Priest, heralded by the long 
succession of Aaronic priests, and by all the sacri- 
fices which smoked on Patriarchal and Jewish altars, 



4oo The Christian Ministry 



during the lapse of forty centuries, has died for His 
people and risen again, and now intercedes for and 
reigns over them. What room is there for another 
priest? What remains for a priest to do? What 
powers can he exercise, what offices can he perform, 
without invading Christ's prerogative and impugn- 
ing the perfection of His Priesthood ? 

This is the unanswerable argument of the apostle 
in resisting the Levitical tendencies of the Hebrew 
converts, and the proud assumptions of the priests 
who still clung to the ancient ritual. In opposition 
to their conceits, he contrasts with the number and 
succession of the Jewish priests, and the frequency, 
variety, and mere ceremonial value of their offerings, 
the glorious High-Priest of the Gospel, His Divinity, 
His holiness, His immutability, His immortality, the 
efficacy of His sacrifice and the prevalency of His 
intercession. And he shows, with a massive logic 
impregnable to all cavillers, that the Priesthood of 
Christ had superseded the priesthood of Aaron, and 
that it was impossible to amalgamate the sacerdotal 
ritualism of the temple with the free worship of the 
Christian sanctuary. 

His great argument on this subject must be too 
familiar to this venerable Assembly to make specific 
quotations necessary. If that argument was conclu- 
sive as against Levitical zealots, it is no less conclu- 
sive as against the innovators of later times, who 



Not a Priesthood. 401 

would turn our sanctuaries into "temples," recon- 
struct the decayed altars of Judaism, thrust the min- 
istry of reconciliation into the place of the one Medi- 
ator between God and man, and bring back upon the 
Church the dimness and the uncertainty and the 
fearfulness of her childhood, in place of the efful- 
gence which streams down upon her from the full- 
orbed glories of her meridian sun. For what less 
than this has been done by the Papal and Oriental 
hierarchies ? And what less are those semi-papists 
aiming at who would unprotestantize the churches 
of the Reformation, by transmuting the ministry 
into a sacerdotal order, and clothing them with the 
attributes of an official mediatorship between their 
fellow-sinners and the Creator? " Brethren, we are 
not children of the bond-woman, but of the free. 
Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ 
hath made us free, and be not entangled again with 
the yoke of bondage." 

In the third place, the Scriptures exclude this 
theory, by teaching that men may come to Christ and 
be accepted by Him, without the intervention of any 
human mediator* 

In the mouths of professed Protestants, who hold 
the sacerdotal theory of the ministry in its mildest 
form, it means " ministerial intervention that sins 

* See Bib. Repertory, vol. xvii., 52. 

34* 



402 The Christian Ministry 



may be forgiven."* This, it is alleged, is u the es- 
sence of priesthood"; and this is declared to be in- 
dispensable under the present economy. If it were 
simply designed to teach, by this language, that in 
the ordinary administration of His government over 
the Church, God is pleased to employ the agency of 
the ministry in bringing men into a state of salva- 
tion, there would be no room for controversy. But 
this is not the idea. It is intended that the Christian 
ministry occupy a position analogous to that of the 
Aaronic priests: that, like the latter, God has consti- 
tuted them a sacred caste to stand between Himself 
and our race; that He has made it obligatory upon 
all men to approach Him through them ; that He will 
accept the worship of a sinner only as ///^present it; 
and that however humble, penitent, and devout may 
be his spirit, he has no more ground to expect for- 
giveness and renewal, so long as he refuses to avail 
himself of their" mediation, than a Jew would have 
had to expect his sin-offering to be accepted, who, 
instead of bringing his victim to the priest, sacrificed 
it with his own hand upon his own altar. This is 
the doctrine. And if it be not clearly " another gos- 
pel," it will at least be difficult to show how the 
fundamental truths of the Gospel can coalesce with it. 



* See Bishop Whittingham's "Two Discourses on the Priesthood 
in the Church." 



Not a Priesthood. 403 

That man is unworthy in himself to come before 
God, is a truth which all religions recognize. He 
must approach Him through a Mediator. Christian- 
ity meets this necessity of his lapsed condition by 
providing a Mediator, — one whose mysterious con- 
stitution and wonderful experience invest him with 
all the qualifications requisite for this exalted office. 
But the scheme we are examining superinduces upon 
this principle another which is unknown to the Gos- 
pel, and, if carried out, subversive of it. It claims 
that we can approach the Mediator Himself only 
through another mediator ; that this second mediator 
is as essential to present our worship to the first, as 
the first is to present it to the Father; and that as 
the Father will accept those only who come to Him 
in the name of Christ, so Christ will receive only 
those who come to Him through the intervention of 
a human priest. The bare statement of this flagrant 
heresy must revolt any intelligent auditory not al- 
ready steeped in Romish errors. One is at a loss 
how to stigmatize it, — whether as more derogatory 
to the Saviour or more discouraging and tyrannical 
towards man. To exhibit in detail its contrariety to 
the whole scope and tenor of the New Testament 
would call for a recital of a large part of the volume. 
When we examine the four Evangelist's, we con- 
stantly find the Saviour inviting sinners to come di- 
rectly to Him. When we turn to the book of Acts 



404 The Christian Ministry 



and the Epistles, we hear the apostles, with one 
voice, addressing people of all tongues and nations, 
repeating the same lesson: " Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. " Never do 
they say, " Come to us and we will obtain forgive- 
ness for you." If the apostle had said (observes 
Augustine), " These things have I written unto you, 
that you should not sin; but if any man sin, you have 
me for a mediator, and I, by my prayer, obtain par- 
don for your sins, as, in a certain place, Parmenian 
placed the bishop to be a mediator between the 
people and God, what good and faithful Christian 
could abide him? Who would behold him as an 
apostle of Christ, and not as an anti-Christ ?" 

Intercessory prayer is undoubtedly one of the 
duties of the ministry. But it is no less a duty 
common to all Christians. The command is, " Pray 
one for another." And while the apostles are 
earnest in praying for their converts, they are im- 
portunate in desiring their converts to pray for them. 
It were as reasonable, therefore, to argue that the 
people must interpose to give effect to the prayers 
of the ministry, as to pretend that the ministry 
are the only authorized medium through which the 
people can approach God. 

Tin's so-called priesthood must come to God 
through the advocacy of Jesus Christ; their own 
application is to the Mediator. Why should not 



Not a Priesthood. 405 

the laity do the same ? Why may they not as well 
make their suit directly to Christ as to a human 
priest? Is the latter more benevolent, more pitiful, 
more willing to hear them, better able to help them? 
The bare suggestion were impious. It is the glory 
of the Christian dispensation that it brings God near 
to us. The veil of the temple has been rent and the 
holy of holies laid open. In place of that awful 
shrine, to which the high-priest alone was admitted, 
and even he only once a year, and with rites adapted 
to strike terror through all hearts, the infinite One 
has stooped to our weakness and manifested Him- 
self in the flesh. Assuming our nature into an in- 
dissoluble union with His own, He dwelt among us, 
shared in our toils, fought with our temptations, 
drank of the cup of our sorrows, associated with the 
humblest of the race, bore with their infirmities, 
healed their diseases, wept with them in their afflic- 
tions, and allowed no measure of degradation or 
depravity to exclude them from His sympathy. 
During the whole of His public ministry, " He went 
about doing good." The common people, long 
accustomed to the contempt of the Scribes and 
Pharisees, and to the tyranny of their Romish task- 
masters, " wondered at the gracious words which 
proceeded out of His mouth." They were not used 
to kindness. Still less were they used to a Teacher 
who could not only abate or remove their bodily 



406 The Christian Ministry 



sufferings, but go down into the lowest depths of 
their experience and supply the restless cravings of 
their moral and sentient nature for some satisfying 
good. They gathered around Him, therefore, wher- 
ever He went. They followed Him to the moun- 
tain and the desert. They even intruded upon His 
hours of sacred retirement and needful repose. And 
He bore with it all. He requited their importunity 
with miracles of mercy, and ceased not to counsel 
and comfort them, until He sealed His love for them 
with His death. 

This is the Saviour who, as we are now told, can 
be approached only through an earthly priesthood ! 
Men who claim to be "successors of the apostles" 
in office and prerogative, arrogate a power which the 
apostles themselves would not have dared to assume. 
Think of the twelve interposing themselves between 
their Master and one of these groups of anxious and 
suffering Israelites, and saying to them, " What will 
you? If you have any request to prefer to Him, it 
must be done through us. Be it healing, pardon, 
instruction, whatever you desire, we must present 
the application, or He will not heed it." Were a 
passage like this found in any portion of the New 
Testament, the very instinct of every reader of the 
sacred volume would pronounce it a vulgar and pro- 
fane interpolation. There was a single occasion on 
which some of the apostles did undertake, not to do 



Not a Priesthood. 407 

a thing so audacious as this, but to prevent a com- 
pany of parents from bringing their children to 
Christ ; and the manner in which He resented and 
reproved their officiousness, supplies one of the earli- 
est and sweetest lessons we learn about the Saviour : 
"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and for- 
bid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
Can He feel it as a less indignity to Himself, that the 
men He has appointed to feed and govern His flock 
should thrust themselves in between Him and their 
fellow-sinners, and say to them, "You cannot come 
to Christ, nor will He forgive and accept you, unless 
we present your repentance and your prayers, and 
intercede for you" ? 

Let no one say that this is to disparage the func- 
tions of the ministry and the ordinances of the 
Church. Those ordinances are means of grace, and 
it is through the labors of the ministry that men are 
usually led to Christ. But what we protest against 
is the Levitical notion that the ministers of the Gos- 
pel are official mediators between God and man, 
through whom alone there can be any access to the 
Deity. We brand this dogma as contravening the 
express teachings of the New Testament, which in- 
vites and requires men to look directly to Christ for 
the pardon of sin and all other blessings. 

The validity of this argument will further appear 
when it is considered that the sacerdotal theory of 



40S The Christian Ministry 



the Christian ministry & subversive of all true views 
of the nature and design of the Church. 

It has boon repeatedly intimated that the doctrine 
of an official human priesthood in the Church, is in- 
terlaced with a corresponding hypothesis as to the 
nature and functions of the Church itself. The 
Church, according to this system, is a Hierarchy. 
It consists of a single society (now unhappily in a 
somewhat divided state), placed under the govern- 
ment of Diocesan Bishops, who derive their author- 
ity from Christ through an unbroken prelatical suc- 
cession. These bishops, indeed, with the inferior 
clergy, properly constitute the Church, the people 
being a mere appendage to the ministry. For the 
doctrine that the clergy are a priesthood, carries with 
it the prerogative of exclusive mediation. But to 
assume to be the only mediators between God and 
the Church y would have been too glaring a usurpa- 
tion of Christ's office to be ventured upon in the 
early stage of this heresy. The Churchy however, 
might mediate between God and the people, and so 
the clergy gradually transformed their " order" into 
"the Church." To this Church are confided the 
gifts of salvation. It stands in the place and is 
clothed with the authority of Christ, as His Vicar. 
It is the storehouse of grace, and this grace it com- 
municates through the sacraments, which must be 
duly administered by sacerdotal hands. In baptism 



Not a Priesthood. 409 



sinners are regenerated, and by the Eucharist, in 
which the faithful partake of the real body and 
blood of Christ, they have their forgiveness sealed 
to them. Non-prelatical societies form no part of 
the Church, but are schismatical organizations; and 
no one who declines the jurisdiction of the hierarchy, 
can have any scriptural evidence that he is in the 
way of salvation. 

The priesthood being the stewards of the grace 
deposited in this u storehouse/' they dispense it ex- 
clusively through the sacraments. " We have almost 
embraced the doctrine," says a writer of this school, 
" that God conveys grace only through the instru- 
mentality of the mental energies, i.e., through faith, 
prayer, active spiritual contemplations, or what is 
called 'communion with God,' in contradiction to 
the primitive view, according to which the Church 
and her sacraments are the ordained and direct 
means of conveying to the soul what is in itself 
supernatural and unseen."* 4i These powers of 
the Church," another eminent apologist of the sys- 
tem has observed, M are very great, — they are even 
awful ; if not conferred by God, they are blasphe- 
mously assumed by man. The power of communi- 
cating to man the divine nature itself, of bringing 
down the Deity from heaven, of infusing the Spirit 

* Oxford Tracts, vol. ii., Preface. 
35 



4i o 77/6- Christian Minis fry 



into the souls of miserable mortals, — this, which is 
nothing more than the every-day promise of the 
Church every time that the priest stands at the font 
or ministers at the altar, is so awful and so tremen- 
dous, that we scarcely dare to read it, except in 
familiar words which scarcely touch the ear/'* 

11 Awful and tremendous" these powers are ; and 
we agree with the writer, that " if not conferred by 
God, they are blasphemously assumed by man." 
That the scheme is one which first converts the 
Church into a lordly and oppressive hierarchy, and 
then puts it in Christ's place, must be too apparent 
to require argument. " It is to confound the means 
of grace with the Author of grace ; to worship the 
thing made and dishonor the Maker. It is to array 
against Christ the instrumentality which He has 
established against Satan. "f And all this is the 
legitimate result of the dogma that the Christian 
ministry is a priesthood. 

For if the ministry be a priesthood, having special 
access to God, the accredited intercessors of the 
laity, and the sole dispensers of salvation, the tree 
has but yielded its proper fruit. It was the gradual 
assumption of these prerogatives which issued in the 
establishment of that great anti-Christian corpora- 



* Professor Sewell. 

f The Bishop of Chester, now Archbishop of Canterbury. 



Not a Priesthood. 41 1 

tion, whose usurpations and crimes make up so large 
a portion of the history of the civilized world for the 
last twelve centuries. The same spirit in England 
forged the chains of the Puritans, and in Scotland 
shed the blood of the Covenanters like water. In 
this country it has displayed itself in the glorification 
of the " Church" at the expense of her Divine Head, 
in a growing sycophancy on the part of many of the 
subordinate clergy towards their Bishops, and in re- 
fusing to recognize as veritable members of Christ's 
mystical body, Churches imbued with Christ's Spirit, 
and laden with those fruits of holiness which are the 
only incontestable marks of His presence. These 
are the natural, not to say the unavoidable, fruits of 
a system which teaches that the few hundred prelat- 
ically ordained ministers in the United States, are 
the only channel through which the twenty-five mil- 
lions of people who make up this nation, can have 
any " covenanted" access to God. Just in propor- 
tion as these extravagant pretensions come to be 
acquiesced in, will the experience of past ages be 
repeated; and petty Hildebrands and Lauds will ap- 
pear, not, happily, in this country, to dethrone rulers 
and pillory heretics, but to hurl opprobrious epithets 
at Churches which give palpable demonstration that 
the Spirit of God dwells in them. 

I repeat it: ambition and imperiousness on the 
part of the clergy, the multiplication of rites and cere- 



412 The Christian Ministry 



monies, the substitution of a sacramental for a spirit- 
ual religion, and the progressive deterioration of the 
Church in all its attributes, are but the logical devel- 
opment of that noxious germ, that the ministry is a 
sacerdotal order: and they may suffice as so many 
illustrations of the sentiment, that this theory is sub- 
versive of all true views of the nature and design of 
the Church. " The whole system'' (I quote the lan- 
guage of the able and eloquent Bishop of the Diocese 
of Ohio) " is one of Church instead of Christ, priest 
instead of Gospel, concealment of truth instead of 
manifestation of truth, ignorant superstition instead 
of enlightened faith, bondage where we are prom- 
ised liberty, — all tending directly to load us with 
whatever is odious in the worst meaning of priest- 
craft, in place of the free, affectionate, enlarging, 
elevating, and cheerful liberty of a child of God."* 

It follows from all that has been said, and is 
urged as another prime objection to this sacerdotal 
theory, that it is fraught ivitli ruin to the souls of men. 

The allegation that the tendency of this system is 
to make men depend upon the priest for salvation, 
will be met with a volley of caveats and disclaimers. 
" Nothing of this sort," we shall be told, "is incul- 
cated or encouraged: all are admonished that the 
offices of the clergy cannot avail to their benefit 

* Bishop Mcllvaine'a "Chaige/ 1 1843. 



Not a Priesthood. 413 

without their own faith and repentance." This may- 
be said with perfect sincerity. But it is the actual 
tendency of the system with which we are now deal- 
ing: and in this view it presents, as we contend, this 
pregnant issue, to wit, the religion of the priest or 
the religion of the sinner. 

It has been justly observed that " mankind have 
an innate propensity, as to other errors, so to that of 
endeavoring to serve God by proxy; to commit to 
some distinct order of men the care of their religious 
concerns, in the same manner as they confide the 
care of their bodily health to the physician, and of 
their legal transactions to the lawyer; deeming it 
sufficient to follow implicitly their directions without 
attempting themselves to become acquainted with 
the mysteries of medicine or of law. Even thus are 
they willing and desirous that others should study 
and should understand the mysterious doctrines of 
religion in their stead ; should practise in their 
stead some more exalted kind of piety and virtue ; 
and should offer prayers and sacrifices on their be- 
half, both in their lifetime and after their death. . . . 
Hence the gradual transformation of the Christian 
minister, the presbyter, into the sacrificing priest, 
the 'izpzbz (in Latin, ' sacerdos/ as the Romans call 
theirs), of the Jewish and Pagan religions."* 

* Archbishop Whately, " Errors of Romanism." 

35* 



414 The Christian Ministry 



Human nature is the same in all countries and 
communions. Everywhere it is more or less infected 
with this craving after a vicarious religion: and the 
sacerdotal theory, however it may be mollified and 
disguised, meets its requisitions. For even in the 
mitigated form in which it is now propounded to the 
Protestant world, this scheme converts Christianity, 
as we have shown, into a sacramental system. In 
the New Testament, the word of God is made the 
chief instrument in the conversion and sanctification 
of men. The great function assigned to the apos- 
tles, and to the ministers appointed to succeed them, 
was " not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." And 
divine truth is uniformly recognized as the principal 
means through which the Almighty Spirit recovers 
men from their apostasy and prepares them for 
heaven. 

The scheme we are examining reverses this order, 
and substitutes the sacraments for the word. The 
preaching of the Gospel is systematically disparaged. 
The pulpit is thrust into a corner to give place to the 
communion-table, now transformed into an "altar." 
The gifts of grace are deposited in baptism and the 
Lord's Supper ; and it is only by receiving these 
ordinances at the hands of the duly authorized priest- 
hood that sinners can be regenerated and made par- 
takers of a true faith. What sound the pulpit utters, 
or whether any sound at all, is of little moment; the 



Not a Priesthood. 41 5 

whole interest of " priest" and people being concen- 
trated where, if the theory be well founded, it cer- 
tainly should be, upon the font and the " altar." 

Let the clergy refine upon the terms they apply to 
these ordinances as they choose : the actual impres- 
sion made upon the popular mind will be, that the 
sacraments are invested with a sort of intrinsic effi- 
cacy which insures the renewal and justification of 
those who partake of them. 

When Charles II. was dying, his brother James 
surreptitiously brought into the room Father Hud- 
dleston, a Benedictine monk. " Sire," said he to the 
king, " this good man once saved your life [at the 
battle of Worcester] ; he now comes to save your 
soul." Charles faintly answered, " He is welcome." 
Huddleston went through his part better than had 
been expected. He knelt by the bed, listened to the 
confession, pronounced the absolution, and adminis- 
tered extreme unction. He asked if the king wished 
to receive the Lord's Supper. " Surely," said Charles, 
11 if I am not unworthy." The host was brought in. 
Charles feebly strove to rise and kneel before it. 
The priest bade him lie still, and assured him that 
God would accept the humiliation of the body. The 
king found so much difficulty in swallowing the 
bread that it was necessary to open the door and to 
procure a glass of water. This rite ended, the monk 
held up a crucifix before the penitent, charged him 



4i 6 The Christian Ministry 



to fix his last thoughts on the sufferings of the 
Redeemer, and withdrew.* 

This scene might well supply the theme for an 
extended discourse. But the one aspect of it with 
which we are now concerned is, that the monk was 
brought to the expiring voluptuary to " save his 
soul," and that he as readily gave himself up into his 
hands to be saved by him. Charles went through 
the form of a confession ; but beyond this he had 
nothing to do. The whole work of his salvation 
was effected, if effected at all, by the priest. And 
thus one of the most shameless sensualists who ever 
sat on the British throne, surrounded at the very 
moment by his whole harem of concubines, was 
dismissed into the world of spirits, with the feeling 
that the manipulations and benisons of a friar had 
cleansed his leprous soul and made him meet to 
appear before a holy God ! 

If this be an extreme case, it is only because the 
rank and the vices of Charles make it so. Wherever 
a sacerdotal system is established, the sentiment will 
prevail that the priest can " save the soul." There 
will be a disposition to look to the priest instead of 
looking to Christ; a superstitious reliance upon the 
sacraments ; a feeling that to receive baptism and 
the Eucharist from the hands of an ecclesiastic in the 

* See Macaulay, and the " Pictorial History of England." 



Not a Priesthood. 41 7 

line of the " succession/' is somehoiv to secure the 
remission of sin and the favor of heaven. Undoubt- 
edly these ordinances are of very great value. They 
are channels through which God is accustomed to 
communicate grace to the hearts of His people. And 
every believer knows what comfort and strength may 
be derived from a penitent and devout attendance 
upon them. But the sacerdotal system, practically 
and as regards the masses of the people, puts the 
priest and the sacraments in the place of the true 
Mediator. Multitudes come to them, it is to be 
feared, like the royal libertine just mentioned, with a 
blind faith, expecting to be saved, as the Hindoos 
and all Pagans do, through the opus operatum of rites 
which the priest celebrates for them ; and utterly 
uninstructed in the real grounds of a sinner's justifi- 
cation before God. We do not hesitate, therefore, to 
urge it as a capital objection to the system, that it is 
adapted to mislead men in the matter of their salva- 
tion, and destroy them eternally. 

Such are some of the grounds on which we dis- 
card the heresy of an official human priesthood in the 
Christian Church. This dogma is at variance ivith the 
whole structure of the New Testament, and is especially 
disproved by the absence of all sacerdotal terms and 
titles, as applied to the ministers of the Gospel. 

It is in a high degree derogatory to the one perfect 
and unchangeable Priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. 



41 8 The Christian Ministry 

It contravenes the emphatic teaching of the Scrip- 
tares, that every sinner is authorised to come directly 
to Christ for pardon, without the intervention of any 
earthly mediator. 

It is subversive of all true vieivs of the nature and 
design of the Church. 

And it is fraught with ruin to the souls of men. 

In denying that the Christian ministry is a priest- 
hood, we surrender nothing of the honor which 
properly belongs to it, and make no compromise of 
its chartered rights and privileges. We do not for 
one moment give place to those persons who, going 
off to the opposite extreme, maintain that Christ has 
instituted no permanent ministry in the Church, and 
made no provision for the orderly induction of men 
into this office. For, not to advert to other elements 
of proof, we cannot understand how an apostle should 
have written three epistles for the express purpose of 
defining the office and functions of a " Bishop/' if 
no such office was created. 

What the office is, is a question on which the Chris- 
tian world has been divided, from a period a little sub- 
sequent to the apostolic age until now. As already 
stated, the theories respecting the form ox constitution 
of the ministry are as conflicting as those which per- 
tain to its nature. There is, however, at the present 
time, a very general and very significant concurrence 
of sentiment in the different branches of the Church, 



Not a Priesthood. 419 

as to the import of the New Testament utterances, in all 
that it says on the subject of " Bishops." Even those 
who contend for a prelatical order in the Church 
concede that their bishops are not the bishops men- 
tioned in the inspired writings. " The name bishop," 
says the late Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, 
in his tract on this subject, " which now designates 
the highest grade of the ministry, is not appropriated 
to that office in Scripture. That name is there given 
to the middle order, or presbyters : and all that we 
read in the New Testament concerning bishops (in- 
cluding, of course, the words ' overseers' and ' over- 
sight/ which have the same derivation) is to be re- 
garded as pertaining to that middle grade." The 
great mass of the Reformed churches — including, too, 
the best of the English Reformers — not only adopted 
this view as to the rank of the scriptural " bishop," 
but contended that this order, styled indifferently by 
the sacred penmen " bishops" and " presbyters," was 
the highest, and indeed the only, grade of ministers 
instituted by Christ as a permanent order in the 
Church. The leading arguments in support of this 
view must be familiar to every intelligent Presbyterian, 
and the time forbids me to go into the discussion of 
the topic here. Let it suffice to know, that when the 
apostle says, " If a man desire the office of a bishop, 
he desireth a good work," he refers to that office 
which we all recognize as the chief office in the 



420 The Christian Ministry 

Church, — to the bishop of a single congregation, not 
to a diocesan bishop. 

Why the office he mentions is a " good work" 
might be shown by numerous cogent arguments. 
Most of these, however, must be omitted ; and all 
should be, were it not that some may suppose that 
the tendency of this discourse, so far, has been to 
depreciate the sacred office, and divest it of powers 
which really belong to it. But there is no occasion 
for any sensitiveness on this point. Nothing can 
damage the ministry so much as the usurpation of 
prerogatives and functions to which it has no valid 
claim. It is the lordly pretensions of an ambitious 
" priesthood" which brings the ministry into disrepute, 
and fills churches with formalists and hypocrites. 
By far other means than these must the ministry 
conciliate the respect and confidence of the world. 
Viewed in its scriptural nature, and as fulfilling its 
prescribed mission, " the office of a bishop" is one of 
pre-eminent honor, — in the highest and best sense of 
the terms, " a good work.'' 

In the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ, we 
are presented with the brightest display of the Divine 
perfections which has been made to the intelligent 
universe. The Church, which is the fruit of the 
Redeemer's sufferings, has been, from the period of 
Adam's apostasy, the great object of regard to the 
angelic hosts, and to Jehovah Himself. Not only is 



Not a Priesthood. 42 1 



there no earthly institution which rivals it in this 
view, but all human affairs, from the rise and over- 
throw of dynasties to the familiar incidents in every 
household history, are to be made tributary to its 
welfare, and subservient to its ultimate triumph. God 
has linked His own glory with its destiny, and or- 
dained it as the means by which His manifold wisdom 
shall be made known to principalities and powers in 
heavenly places. To the ministry of reconcilia- 
tion He has committed the chief earthly agency in 
working out for the Church this sublime mission. 
They are its principal officers, to whom He has 
delegated, in common with the Christian people, the 
actual oversight and government of its affairs. And 
to them is confided that ministration of His word and 
ordinances by which He has chosen mainly to enlarge 
and perpetuate it. Without granting them any pecu- 
liar and exclusive access to His throne; without 
constituting them mediators between Himself and 
their fellow-men; without investing them with the 
least efficiency in themselves, or tying the gifts of His 
grace indissolubly to their functions ; without giving 
them power so much as to " make one hair white or 
black," much less to effect a sacerdotal expiation or 
absolution in behalf of a single sinner, He has never- 
theless placed them in His Church as under-shep- 
herds, and honored them as His prime instruments in 
conveying pardon and deliverance to a ruined race. 

36 



422 77/6' Christian Ministry 



They arc His pastors to "seek that which is lost, 
to strengthen the diseased, to heal the sick, to bring 
back again that which was driven away.'* They are 
His stewards, "faithful and wise," to dispense the 
inexhaustible provisions of His house to His ran- 
somed family. They are His watchmen, to warn the 
slumbering city of impending danger; His laborers, 
to tend the harvest and gather it into His garners; 
His ambassadors, to negotiate a peace with a re- 
volted race; His master-builders, to carry forward, 
with living stones, the temple of the Lord, until at 
length the top-stone shall be laid with shoutings of 
" Grace, Grace, unto it." Is there any other office 
clothed with functions at once so beneficent and so 
exalted as these? which bring worms of the dust 
into a more sacred and intimate relation to the 
Deity? or which is more legibly inscribed with that 
most honorable and sublime of all legends, " Glory 
to Gon in the highest; on earth, peace, good 

WILL TOWARDS MEN" ? 

For, consider, on the latter of these topics, w r hether 
there is any office more vitally connected with the 
well-being of our race than that of a " bishop" or 
pastor. His vocation is to do good. Doing good is 
not with him (I mean according to the spirit of his 
commission) an incidental and contingent thing; it 
ilis business, — his "work" — the very end for 
which he is made a "bishop." He is called to the 



Not a Priesthood. 423 

God-like service of scattering blessings all around 
his pathway through life, — not blessings of his own, 
but handfuls of priceless gifts which it would degrade 
to compare them with rubies and diamonds ; and 
these he throws broad-cast, " without money and 
without price,'' among the thoughtless, the aban- 
doned, and the lost. The ministry of such a man in 
a community is like a fountain in a desert, — like the 
sun in the heavens. Heathful influences radiate 
from it in every direction. Whatever is evil it helps 
to eradicate or restrain ; whatever is good it fosters 
and augments. It not only assists the wandering in 
finding the way to heaven, but it tells with a benign 
though silent power upon every social and secular 
interest. Its influence distils like the dew. Too 
subtle to be traced by any eye but that of Omni- 
science, it permeates the tangled thicket of human 
sympathies, passions, cares, and contests, and, with 
a wondrous vitality, nurtures all pure emotions, 
quickens the germs of virtuous feeling, and imper- 
ceptibly spreads over the crude and repulsive mass, 
a garniture of celestial flowers beautiful enough for 
angels to stop and look upon, and redolent of heaven. 
This is not fiction, but sober reality. For wherever 
there is a faithful ministry these salutary changes are 
going forward. And the annals of the last eighteen 
hundred years may be confidently appealed to in 
proof of the position, that such a ministry is not 



4-4 The Christian Ministry 



merely the potent auxiliary, but the harbinger and 
instrument of all true social progress; and that just 
in proportion as a people enjoy and appreciate its 
labors, do they advance in the arts and appliances 
of a refined civilization. Nor this alone. Its chief 
benefits are not those which meet the eye, as we 
contrast the school-houses and churches, the ships 
and factories, the grain-clad fields and smiling ham- 
lets, the happy homes and peaceful populations, of a 
free, Protestant land, with the ignorance, brutality, 
and wretchedness which overspread a pagan coun- 
try. Its highest and richest blessings are invisible. 
They are the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit 
The prison doors opened to them that were bound, 
the blind restored to sight, the dead made alive, 
rebels pardoned, aliens brought back to God, apos- 
tates changed into sons, earth and heaven reconciled, 
hell vanquished, angels rejoicing, and all things has- 
tening forward to that glorious consummation when 
the Saviour of the world, crowned with His many 
crowns, shall come to " present His Church to Him- 
self, a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, 
or any such thing, but holy and without blemish," — 
these are the munificent results which it has pleased 
I to connect with the labors of a sound and evan- 
gelical ministry. And when we contemplate them, 
remembering especially that it will take eternity to 
disclose their real grandeur, and that we cannot, in 



Not a Priesthood. 425 

our present imperfect state, grasp the issues involved 
even in the salvation of a single soul, we feel that 
the office which is clothed with the chief instru- 
mental agency in bringing about these results, well 
deserves to be signalized as " a good work" ; and 
that meekly and worthily to bear it, were a greater 
honor than to wear a diadem. 

I omit the remaining topics proper to this branch 
of the subject, and hasten to conclude this too pro- 
tracted discourse, by stating two or three only of the 
various reflections suggested by the discussion with 
which we have been occupied. 

1. We are admonished of tlic danger of innovating 
upon Clirisfs institutions. 

Our Saviour appointed twelve men, to whom sub- 
sequently He added another, as His apostles. The 
apostolic office being temporary (as can be shown by 
ample evidence), they appointed, under the authority 
with which they were clothed, other officers as per- 
manent rulers and teachers of the Church. The 
principal of these was the presbyter or bishop. The 
bishops were of equal rank; their power was simply 
ministerial and declarative ; and they were sent forth, 
not to offer sacrifices, but to preach the Gospel. 

Scarcely were the apostles laid in their graves 
before contests for the pre-eminence arose among 
these bishops. As those who held the metropolitan 
and other influential churches succeeded in subjecting 

36* 



426 The Christian Ministry 

their obscurer brethren to their control, the theory 
was by degrees invented and propagated that the 
ministry had been established with ''three orders," 
instead of one. Nor did the encroachment upon the 
primitive polity stop with this change in its external 
form. A "priesthood" could wield more power than 
a " ministry." The Levitical scheme was, therefore, 
re-enacted ; and the ministry stood before the world 
a sacerdotal order, armed with plenary authority as 
the priests of the Most High God, and charged, pro- 
visionally, with the salvation or perdition of the race. 
The introduction of this element into the Church 
could not fail to tell with disastrous effect upon its 
character. There is no peculiarity of the apostolic 
church more marked than its simplicity. Simple in 
its organization, simple in its sacraments, simple in 
its worship, simple in the whole cast and tone of its 
ministrations, its Doric plainness and dignity were 
in striking contrast with the gorgeous ceremonial of 
the temple. But this attribute could not cohere with 
a sacerdotal system. The embryo priests, therefore, 
addressed themselves to the work of reform. And 
with such vigor have their successors carried forward 
the work, that the Church they have made is as un- 
like the Church organized by the apostles as this 
latter was unlike the Church of the Theocracy. The 
simplest of institutes has been transformed into a 
gigantic hierarchy, the complexity and magnificence 



Not a Priesthood. 427 

of whose outward structure is in startling contrast 
with the spiritual penury of its interior, — a sphere of 
crystals enclosing a lump of clay. 

Let not the lesson be lost upon the present gen- 
eration. These disastrous results can all be traced 
back to apparently trivial deviations from the apos- 
tolic teaching and order in the primitive Church. 
Like two brooks which have contiguous sources, 
the false and the true imperceptibly diverged from 
each other, until their respective currents came to be 
established in precisely opposite directions. And it 
behoves all Churches to consider that their purity 
and safety lie, under God, in a scrupulous adherence, 
as well in government and worship as in doctrine, 
to the canons of the New Testament. Innovations 
conceded, in the first instance, to a fastidious or per- 
verted popular taste, may come, after a while, like the 
obsolete rites revived in the second century, to be 
challenged as of Divine appointment. And a Church 
which forsook its Lord to make His religion more 
palatable to the world, may find itself, in the end, 
indissolubly wedded to the world and repudiated by 
its Lord. " The Lord is with you while ye be with 
Him : and if ye seek Him, He will be found of you : 
but if ye forsake Him, He will forsake you." 

2. It is evident that the ruling eldership and the 
laity in general have a vital interest in preserving the 
integrity and purity of the ministry. 



428 The Christian Ministry 

The ministry was instituted, not for the ease or 
aggrandizement of those who might be appointed to 
discharge its functions, but for the glory of God and 
the good of mankind. And as no other office may 
compare with it for usefulness, when kept within its 
legitimate sphere, so there is none which, debased 
and prostituted, is so fruitful of mischief. Spurning 
the petty tyranny of the dungeon and the stake, this 
agency is one which deals out damnation to men's 
souls. It may even be doubted whether, confining 
the remark to Christendom, any single instrumen- 
tality has consigned more victims to perdition than 
that of incompetent, faithless, and heretical ministers. 

Your concern, therefore, in the character of the 
ministry is direct and profound. It is of the last 
moment to you that it be orthodox, pure, intelli- 
gent, faithful. And you have a deep stake in un- 
derstanding what its nature and authority are; what 
it was ordained to do in the matter of your salvation, 
and what it cannot do. It behoves you to know that 
we have no sacerdotal powers ; that the sacraments 
we administer have no inherent efficacy to wash 
away your sins and insure your justification; that 
there is no atonement for you but in the blood of 
the cross, and no absolution but that which God 
pronounces; that neither by ceremonial expurgation 
nor official intercession can we shield you from the 
curse of the law ; that you are to rely upon the mes- 



Not a Priesthood. 429 

sages we deliver only in so far as you find them in 
harmony with the Scriptures ; that our whole office 
is to stand like John the Baptist and cry, " Behold 
the Lamb of God;" and that if you do not look in 
penitence and faith to the Lamb of God, you may 
spend a lifetime in attending upon the pompous rites 
of a Roman cathedral, or in listening to the most 
eloquent discourses from a Protestant pulpit, and go 
down at length to a deeper hell than Sodom and 
Gomorrah. 

These things it is meet you should know, and 
ponder with all the seriousness which befits such 
momentous themes. And if a ministry should rise 
up and gainsay these truths and arrogate the powers 
here disclaimed, and invite you to trust for the 
remission of your sins and the cleansing of your 
hearts to rites they will perform for you, and, in a 
word, propose to take your salvation into their hands, 
then consider well whether you are to countenance 
these sacerdotal empirics and throw away your souls 
on the preposterous assumption that you can re- 
pent and believe, and be regenerated and saved, by 
proxy ! 

Surely, to be indifferent to the ministry, either as 
regards its alleged powers or its qualifications, is to 
betray your own highest interests. What the essen- 
tial qualifications of the office are, the apostle has 
set forth in the Lpistles to those young Evangelists, 



43° The Christian Minis fry 



Timothy and Titus; and his exposition may be sup- 
plemented from the other books of the New Testa- 
ment. Bishop Ken has shown himself a skilful 
limner in bringing together these various features as 
constituting the portrait of a true bishop or pastor: 

" Give me the priest* these graces shall possess: 
Of an ambassador, the first address; 
A father's tenderness ; a shepherd's care ; 
A leader's courage, which the cross can bear; 
A ruler's awe; a watchman's wakeful eye; 
A pilot's skill the helm in storms to ply; 
A fisher's patience, and a laborer's toil ; 
A guide's dexterity to disembroil ; 
A prophet's inspiration from above: 
A teacher's knowledge, and a Saviour's love." 

These are the gifts to be desired in a pastor. It 
would be going too far to say that "no one should as- 
sume the office who comes short of this standard in 
any particular. But it is the right and duty of the 
laity, and of the eldership as their representatives, to 
insist that the ministry shall at least possess the 
general character here delineated. This reasonable 
requisition will best insure the fidelity of your pas- 
tors, and your own spiritual comfort and edification. 

3. Finally, the subject with which we have been 
occupied, has its lessons, both of instruction and of 
encouragement, for our beloved Church. 

* Used in the sense of presbyter. 



Not a Priesthood. 43 1 

It is our privilege, my fathers and brethren, to 
belong to a Church which has always guarded, with 
jealous care, both the regal and the sacerdotal pre- 
rogatives of her Divine Head. In her loyalty to the 
State, she has uniformly inculcated upon her mem- 
bers the duty of rendering to Caesar the things that 
are Caesar's. But she has resisted all attempts of 
the civil magistracy to usurp the power of the keys, 
or to impugn, in whatever way, the supremacy of 
Christ in His own spiritual kingdom. 

With no less energy has she asserted the one per- 
fect, exclusive, and unchangeable Priesthood of her 
Redeemer. In all her confessions and symbols has 
she protested against the doctrine of an earthly me- 
diatorship between God and man ; and with no un- 
certain sound have her pulpits vindicated the honors 
of the Great High-Priest of our Profession, whether 
as usurped by Papal, by Oriental, or by so-called 
Protestant, ecclesiastics. 

In the faithful maintenance of these two funda- 
mental principles it has been given to some of our 
sister-churches in Europe, in behalf of Christ, not 
only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His 
sake. They have " had trial of cruel mockings and 
scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprison- 
ment," and of death itself; yet have they "not 
counted their lives dear unto them, so that they 
might finish their course with joy, and the ministry 



432 The Christian Ministry 



which they had received of the Lord Jesus, to testify 
the gospel of the grace of God." Inheriting their 
apostolic faith and order, and emulating their devo- 
tion to Him who sits, " a Priest upon His throne," 
on the holy hill of Zion, our Church has, like them, 
enjoyed, in an eminent degree, the gracious presence 
and protection of her Lord. He brought it here in 
its feebleness. He cast out the heathen and planted 
it. He prepared room before it, and caused it to 
take deep root ; and it filled the land. The hills 
are covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs 
thereof are like the goodly cedars. She has sent 
out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto 
the river. Upon no other Church of our age has 
God bestowed so rich a heritage ; to none has He 
confided a loftier mission. The largest Presbyterian 
body in the world, covering an expanse of territory 
which assimilates our General Assembly to Congress 
itself, as a national convocation, supplied with a thor- 
oughly educated and evangelical ministry, endowed 
with the amplest resources of every kind, and with a 
noble equipment of benevolent agencies for devel- 
oping and applying these resources in the most ef- 
fective manner, — where should our gratitude find a 
limit, or who shall define the measure of our respon- 
sibility ? 

US not forget, in the interchange of our grate- 
ful congratulations, that prosperity like this is fraught 



Not a Priesthood. 433 



with danger as well to Churches as to individuals. 
Through the abounding goodness of God we are a 
united body, — not only homogeneous in faith and 
polity, but substantially agreed in the principles and 
plans upon which our high trust shall be adminis- 
tered. Let it be the care of this venerable Court to 
foster the sentiments of conciliation and Christian 
affection, which now pervade and cement our great 
constituency. Let us discountenance whatever may 
tend to " cause divisions and offences" amongst us, 
as we would the introduction of false doctrine. Let 
us cherish a profound and abiding sense of our abso- 
lute dependence upon God for every blessing. And 
let us never forget that the true glory of the Church 
consists, not in her wealth and her numbers, in the 
pomp of her ministrations and the splendor of her 
outward triumphs, but in her bearing the image of 
her Lord and reflecting the beauty of His Holi- 
ness. 

Thus may our beloved Church be perpetuated as 
a sacred bond of union to our national confederacy; 
as an impregnable bulwark against the aggressions 
of philosophic skepticism and social demoralization ; 
as an intrepid witness to the glorious sovereignty and 
sole Priesthood of Jesus Christ; and as an humble 
but faithful instrument in the hands of her risen 
Lord for preaching the Gospel to every creature. 



37 



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